Will you please turn to Romans? Romans Chapter 11, Verse 36.
For of Him, and through Him, and unto Him, are all things.
To Him be the glory for ever. Amen.
Let us have a word of prayer.
Dear Lord, we want to thank Thee for gathering us together this morning. Thou hast been good to us, and we believe that it is Thy intention that Thou wilt continue to speak to our hearts that know our need. Thou art preparing us for Thy imminent return. For this we are grateful.
We commit this time into Thy hands and trust Thy Holy Spirit to do the work, because He alone can do it. Lord, speak; Thy servants hear. We ask in Thy name. Amen.
We thank the Lord for bringing us again together before His presence. We believe that He has a plan for each and every one of us, and it is only by His Holy Spirit that His plan will be fulfilled. So, as we are gathering this morning, we just commit ourselves to the Lord, praying that our time together will be profitable and will really prepare us for His imminent return.
My assignment is the mystery of God in the church.
We mentioned yesterday that God is the greatest mystery in the universe. Nobody knows Him, not even by searching. But we thank God that He is the God who reveals Himself, and whatever He has revealed of Himself is for us. It is for us to believe, and it is for us to respond.
God has a mystery. He is the One who is able to keep His mystery, even before the foundation of the world. According to the pleasure of His will, He has conceived a mystery. To us today, thank God, this is an open mystery.
God hid that mystery over many centuries. He has done many things, but He has not told anyone why He has done them or what He is aiming at. But, as the Apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians Chapter 3, God has now revealed that mystery to the apostles and the prophets of the New Testament.
So to us today, it is an open mystery, and it is a mystery that concerns each one of us most deeply, because it will be our life and it will be our testimony.
We mentioned yesterday that the mystery of God, which He has hidden for centuries, is that He wants His own beloved Son to head up all things.
As we tried to explain yesterday, the meaning of Christ heading up all things is illustrated in another place in Scripture. In Romans Chapter 13, we are told that there are many commandments, but all these commandments can be summed up in one: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” So love is the sum of all things.
Likewise, we find that God has done many things, but all these things are centered upon His beloved Son. He wants His Son to head up all things. In other words, in everything—especially in our lives—Christ will be all and in all.
And not only that, but thank God, He commits this ministry to His own children. We are not only to submit ourselves to Christ in all things, so that in all things Christ may be manifested in us; He has also commissioned us to bring all things to the feet of our Lord Jesus. This is our life, and this is our work. That is what we have been trying to share together.
But for the purpose of God to be fulfilled, God knows there will be many hindrances. In the first place, we find how Lucifer, the archangel, because of his beauty and his talents, began to be proud of himself. He began to have the ambition to be equal with God—in other words, to take the place of God’s only beloved Son. That is something God will never allow.
So this archangel, Lucifer, was expelled from heaven, and the domain that God had put under him went into ruin and emptiness. It was as if God’s plan had been frustrated.
But God never fails. He knows what to do. As we said yesterday, it would be pretty easy—very easy, extremely easy—for Him to put Lucifer to death. But that would not bring glory to God.
So, in God’s plan, He put that work to man, made a little lower than the angels, and yet man is going to do God’s work. That is what we mentioned yesterday.
Now, this morning, we would like to concentrate on how the Lord brought in His redemption.
We find that in Genesis Chapter 1, Verse 2, the earth was ruined and empty. But thank God, in His mercy, He began to restore the earth to be habitable. So, from Genesis Chapter 1, Verse 2 onward, it is not the beginning of creation; it is the beginning of the restoration of the earth.
God used six days to restore the earth to be habitable, and on the sixth day He made man. We all know that man is made a little lower than the angels. The angels are spirits, but man has a spirit, a soul, and a body.
God created man, and He put man in the Garden of Eden. He restored the garden to be a beautiful garden, with plenty of fruit trees for the food of man. He put man into that garden and gave him a command.
The command was to cultivate the garden and to guard the garden. God does not want man to be at leisure with nothing to do. He knows better: if we have nothing to do, we tend to do something that will bring shame to God.
So God, in the very beginning, wanted man to work, to be occupied, to improve what God had already done—to cultivate the ground and make it more fruitful.
On the other hand, God’s command was to guard the garden. We know the Garden of Eden was a beautiful garden, but it had no wall. Why? Because God wanted man to be that wall. So God said, “You guard it.”
God knew the enemy was outside the garden, and he was trying to get in to tempt man. So God gave this responsibility to man: to guard the garden, not only to enjoy the garden, but also to guard it against the entry of the enemy.
Unfortunately, man did not guard the garden as he should. Because of this failure, the enemy slipped in. I believe we all know the story: how he tempted Eve to eat of the forbidden tree. After Eve had eaten of the forbidden tree, she gave it to her husband, Adam, and Adam ate.
You know, God created man to defeat God’s enemy. That is the purpose of God. But instead, man fell into the hands of the enemy. God created man to be His ally, as it were, to be used of Him to defeat His enemy and bring glory to God. But instead, man fell into the hands of the enemy, became an enemy to God instead of an ally to God, and man was driven out of the Garden of Eden.
We know that because of the fall of our forefathers, we who have been born of Adam and Eve were tainted with sin. That was our condition.
Now, brothers and sisters, God, having made His plan and His purpose, will never forsake it. So we thank God that He began to work, and this is the story of our Lord Jesus.
As we find in Philippians Chapter 2, our Lord Jesus, before He came into this world, was equal with God. He was God’s only begotten Son. That was not something to be grasped at; that was His right, because He was the only begotten Son of God.
All that God is, all the fullness of God, dwells in Him bodily. He and God are one. That was His position. He was in the place of being worshipped.
And yet, brothers and sisters, for the love of God and in response to His beloved Father, He who was equal with God emptied Himself.
For us to empty ourselves is nothing, and even less than nothing, because if we empty ourselves, what ought to be emptied is nothing but our sins and our transgressions. But for the Son of God, who was equal with God, yet for the love of His Father and the love for us, He was willing to empty Himself.
Of course, He could not empty Himself of His deity, because that is what He is. Even when He was on earth, He was still God. But He could empty Himself of all the glory, the honor, the position, and the right of His being equal with God. That is emptying Himself.
Dear brothers and sisters, whenever we think of what our Lord Jesus emptied Himself of in order to come into this world, it should really draw from us worship and adoration.
But after He emptied Himself, He took up another form. The word “form” there does not mean an outward form; it means an inward image. He took the form, the image, the character, of a bondslave.
He came to be a bondslave of God—that is to say, a slave who had no right of His own, a slave who belonged to His Master, a slave to serve His Master without pay.
That is the form our Lord Jesus took as He came into this world. As a matter of fact, that is the original idea of God concerning man. You know, man was supposed to be also a bondslave to God.
Now everybody today fights for his or her rights. We think we have this right and that right, and we do not want to be intruded upon. But, dear brothers and sisters, the very thought of God concerning man is that we be bondslaves to God. We have no right whatsoever except to follow the instruction of our Master.
That is the inward image, the inward substance, of our Lord Jesus when He came into this world. Outwardly, He took the fashion of a man.
Dear brothers and sisters, when our Lord Jesus came into this world, He was as any other man in the world. But in the way He lived, there was a difference. He had the spirit, as it were, of a bondslave.
That is the reason, when you read the four Gospels, when you read the story of our Lord Jesus, you will find that He again and again declared that He could do nothing by Himself. Of course, when we think of Him, He could do everything if He willed. But He never willed to do anything outside of His Father’s permission.
He said, “I can do nothing by myself. What I have seen the Father do, I do.” He also said that He could say nothing by Himself. Even though we know that our Lord Jesus could say many things—many more things than we can say—yet He said, “I can say nothing. What the Father has said, I say.”
Not only that, He said, “My time is not My own.” You know, during the Feast of Tabernacles, His brothers went to Jerusalem and said, “If You want to become known, do not hide in Galilee. Go into Jerusalem. Show Yourself, that the people may know You.”
Our Lord Jesus said, “Your time is always ready, but My time has not yet come.” In other words, even in His movements, He was guided by His Father’s will. That was the life of our Lord Jesus.
You know, brothers and sisters, when we read the four Gospels, probably our attention will be attracted by the miracles and the mighty works of our Lord Jesus: how He healed the sick, opened the eyes of the blind, even made the dead alive; how He made five loaves and two fishes, given by a little boy, feed five thousand men, women and children not counted.
Brothers and sisters, He could do everything, and yet He said, “I can do nothing.” Throughout His life, He was tempted by the enemy to do things as God, as the Son of God.
You remember that after He was baptized, He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and He became hungry. So the tempter came and said, “If Thou art the Son of God, command this stone to become bread, that Thou canst satisfy Thy hunger.”
That shows the Lord could do it, but He would not do it. He said:
Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Brothers and sisters, you remember the story of Gethsemane. It is such a holy scene; it is really beyond words.
Even His disciples did not understand what was going to happen, but the Lord Jesus was clear. He was going to be the sin-bearer. He who knew no sin was to become sin itself. That was a terrible thing.
You know, if you are a very clean person and suppose another person came and stayed with you, and he was undisciplined and unclean, throwing things around and never putting them in order, how would you feel about it? Probably you would kick him out as quickly as possible.
But our Lord Jesus, who knew no sin—absolutely knew no sin—was to be made sin for us. Just think of that. It is beyond our understanding, and that very thing disturbed Him deeply.
His disciples did not understand. He asked the three beloved disciples to stay awake with Him, to pray with Him, but they went to sleep. Here He was alone in the Garden of Gethsemane, struggling over this matter: whether He would accept sin to be laid upon Him.
He who was sinless, so clean, was going to be the dirtiest, the most sinful person in the world, because all the sins of the world were to be His.
Brothers and sisters, we cannot imagine what our Lord Jesus went through in the Garden of Gethsemane. We only know how He prayed. Even He prayed, “Father, if it be possible, let it pass from Me.” But immediately He said, “Not My will, but Thy will be done.”
In the Garden of Gethsemane, He accepted the Father’s will. He went to Calvary to be crucified on the cross. Outwardly, it was the Roman government that crucified Him. Outwardly, it was the Pharisees, the scribes, the governing body of the Jewish assembly. The Jewish nation rejected Him, and the Gentile nation crucified Him.
And yet, brothers and sisters, actually He accepted the Father’s will to become a sin offering for the world.
Brothers and sisters, today we are here this morning because of what He has done, not only in the Garden of Gethsemane but also at Calvary’s cross. We glory in the cross of Jesus Christ.
Thank God that by believing in Him, our sins are all remitted and forgiven. We are clothed with Him as our righteousness before God, and that is the beginning of our salvation.
But, brothers and sisters, we have to remember one thing: to have our sins forgiven and to have the promise of paradise is the beginning, not the end, of our salvation.
How often, after we believe in the Lord Jesus and are saved, we think that is all. But we need to know that this is just the beginning of salvation. God has something far more glorious and important, linked with His eternal purpose, for our lives.
Nobody as we are, yet God has a commission upon all of us. You get the words: He wants us to be a specimen and also His instrument for His eternal purpose.
So, brothers and sisters, we who are saved should not just take it as though, as some people say, “As long as my two feet can be within the gate of heaven, I am satisfied.” Maybe you are satisfied, but God is not satisfied, because this is not why God created man in the first place.
He created us with a glorious purpose. He wants not only to save us, but by saving us, to bring all things to the feet of Jesus.
You know, brothers and sisters, what is meant by being saved? When you are saved, not only are your sins forgiven. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. I believe we all have experienced that.
I can recall very clearly. Back in 1915, I was born. I was born in a Christian family. My father loved the Lord. We had family altar every night. I was brought up in Christian schools. I was considered a good Christian.
And yet, when the Spirit of God touched me, I knew I was the chief of sinners. You may wonder how a boy of fifteen years old would sometimes sit by himself and weep because of his sin. But thank God, in His mercy, He saved me.
Brothers and sisters, this is the way the Lord has given grace to each and every one of us. Do you think that is all? No. That is the beginning.
If we take this as our all, not only will we suffer, but God will suffer, because we have not accomplished His eternal purpose. Dear brothers and sisters, you are connected with the eternal purpose of God. You are to be a recipient as well as a worker for the eternal purpose of God concerning His beloved Son.
That is how our Christian life and our ministry begin. We all have a Christian life to live, and this Christian life is related also to our Christian work.
When we are saved, what happens in our lives? Not only are our sins forgiven, but God has done something much more. Before that, our spirit was dead in sins and transgressions. Because of that, we had no communication with God, because God is Spirit.
I always remember when the Russian cosmonaut first went into outer space. He came back and declared, “There is no God.” Why? Because he said, “I have been to outer space. I looked around. I did not see God at all. Therefore, there is no God.”
But, brothers and sisters, this is a foolish thing, because God is Spirit, and you can only contact Him by spirit. If your spirit is dead in sins and transgressions, how can you contact God by your soul, by thought, by mind, by emotion, or by your physical body? You cannot contact Him that way. You have to contact Him with your spirit.
So, brothers and sisters, when we are saved, the first positive thing is that our spirit becomes alive, and it becomes a new spirit. It is a spirit cleansed by the precious blood. It is a spirit within us that can communicate with God.
So you can cry out to God, “Abba, Father.” That is the first thing that happens in our spirit. We can communicate with God, and I believe we all have that experience.
But more than that, we know that Christ Jesus came into our spirit and became the life of our spirit. More than that, God gave the Holy Spirit to come into our spirit and dwell there.
Now we want to ask the question: Why does God give us the indwelling Holy Spirit? Every brother and sister has the indwelling Holy Spirit. Why does God put the Holy Spirit into us?
There is one reason: by the indwelling Holy Spirit, we are to bring all things in us to the feet of our Lord Jesus. That is Christian life.
You know, Christian life is not something external. Many Christians today live their Christian life only in an external way.
In Richmond, where I live, on the Lord’s Day, as we drive to the meeting place, we pass along Huguenot Road. On that road there are many so-called Christian churches. You have Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish places of worship.
As we drive through, I look at these different buildings and see how many cars are at each place. That represents how many people are in the building to so-called worship God.
But, brothers and sisters, many people serve God only externally. That is to say, they keep certain rules and regulations given by church authority: on Sunday, you have to go to church—that is your duty. You have to read your Bible. You have to pray. You have to share Christ with other people. If you do all these things, you are considered a good Christian.
Brothers and sisters, Christian life is more than that. Christian life is an inward way. That is to say, it is how inwardly you grow in the life of Christ within you.
That is the reason why we have the indwelling Holy Spirit. Brothers and sisters, have you experienced the working of the indwelling Holy Spirit in your Christian life?
I believe immediately after you are saved, the Holy Spirit in you begins to work. The work of the indwelling Holy Spirit is to bring everything in you to the feet of Jesus, that He may head up all things in your life.
The Holy Spirit works very gently. He knows our situation, and in the beginning, probably He will only work on something that concerns your outward behavior.
Suppose you are a person who likes to boast, and whenever you boast, you feel fine. So you become the center of any gathering. But after you believe in the Lord Jesus, something certainly happens.
When you begin to boast, to say something untrue in order to attract attention, what comes? Instead of feeling great, you feel down. Something within is telling you, “You have said too much. Stop.”
Our experience is usually that, in the beginning, we do not listen to the still small voice. We continue to speak. But the result is that instead of feeling fine, glorious, and uplifted, you feel downward. You feel grieved. You feel that you have done something wrong, and your contact with God is stopped.
You have to confess your sin and ask the forgiveness of the Lord, and then have your communication with God restored. Brothers and sisters, I believe this has happened to you.
Sometimes, positively, you lose something, and you pray and ask the Lord to open your eyes to find that which was lost. Have you had such an experience, that after you prayed, the lost thing was found?
Or perhaps you usually go to certain places, and after you believe in the Lord Jesus, the Spirit of God within you tells you, “As a Christian, you should not go to such a place.” But you harden your neck and continue to go, and your feeling afterward is entirely different.
To illustrate from my own experience, I was a pastor’s son. But, strangely, I loved movies. The first thing I looked at in the newspaper was the movie news.
It so happened that I had a friend whose family owned a movie house, so I could go with him to see movies without paying. As a pastor’s son, I dared not go to see movies on Sunday, because I thought Sunday was holy. But on Saturday, I was usually in a movie house.
After I was saved, I still went to the movie house. But somehow people began to tell me, “You are a Christian. You should not go to a movie house to see movies.” I usually argued with them. I said, “I only see good movies—religious movies. What is wrong with that?”
But, brothers and sisters, the Holy Spirit within me would not let me go. He was very gentle, but He was very persistent. He continued to speak to me. Outwardly, I argued with people: “Why should I not go to a movie house?” But inwardly, I was getting weaker and weaker.
Until finally, I decided. I said, “All right. I will not go to a movie house.” But I did not tell anybody. Why? Because I was afraid that I might not be able to keep my promise.
Sure enough, after a few months, people gave my family some tickets to go to a movie house to see a religious movie. I can still remember vividly: it was Noah’s Ark.
I argued with myself, “What is wrong with seeing a religious movie?” I could not resist the temptation. So I went to that movie house and watched that picture.
But, brothers and sisters, during the two hours, outwardly I was looking at a movie; inwardly I was fighting all the time. Strangely, I hoped the movie would be over quickly, and yet I did not leave the movie house until it was finished.
But, dear brothers and sisters, thank God, as I walked out of that movie house, that was the end of it.
So, brothers and sisters, the Lord will deal with us outwardly—our manner of life, even our clothing. The Lord will deal with us: “Is it proper for a Christian to be dressed like this?” It is as if the Lord is taking care of every detail of our lives.
Brothers and sisters, we should thank God for the indwelling Holy Spirit. No matter how much we have sinned against Him, He is still willing to bring us back to Christ, that it may be all of Christ and none of ourselves.
Usually, He begins with small things, with outward things. But gradually, you find that the Holy Spirit begins to work deeper. He works not only in our outward behavior; He works in our emotion, our mind, and our will.
For instance, you remember Matthew Chapter 10. Our Lord Jesus sent the twelve disciples out to be apostles, to preach the gospel. The Lord told them many things.
We know that in Old Testament times we were given the commandment to honor and love our parents. But, strangely, in Matthew Chapter 10, the Lord said:
He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me.
If you love your brothers and sisters, your wife, and even your own life more than the Lord, you cannot be His disciple. He that loves his life—that is, his soul-life—cannot be His disciple.
Brothers and sisters, the Lord begins to deal with our emotion. Are we emotionally completely yielded to the Lord and allowing Him to take charge of our emotional life?
I believe that in my life I was challenged by that. The Spirit of God within me began to ask me this question.
Actually, if I tell you the story, when I was a baby, I was baptized with a few sprinklings upon my head. I did not know anything about it. Maybe I cried after that; I do not know. But I was baptized.
So after I was saved, people began to tell me that I should be baptized by immersion. I argued with them. I said, “No, I have been baptized. Even if it was only a sprinkling of a few drops of water upon my head, yet I was baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I honor His name. I cannot dishonor the name of the Lord.”
That was my argument. Again and again, people talked to me about baptism, and I always argued against them. But, brothers and sisters, as I was reading the Bible, I began to see that immersion is the only way of baptism because it tells us of death, burial, and resurrection.
I remember the last time I argued about this with a friend of mine. He argued with me, and I argued back with him. Finally, he gave me up. He thought I was hopeless, and he went to sleep.
I alone sat there praying. I said, “Lord, You know I will be baptized by immersion, but this is not the time, because I was still a minor. I love my father. My father was a pastor. I love my father. I did not want to worry him.”
I told the Lord, “After I become independent, then I will be baptized by immersion.” But suddenly a voice came to me:
He that loveth father or mother more than Me cannot be My disciple.
This broke me down. I always wanted to be a disciple of our Lord Jesus. So I told the Lord, “If this is Your way, I will do it.”
I went downstairs from my friend’s apartment and knocked on the door next door, where Brother Watchman Nee lived. He came down and opened the door. He knew me, and he said, “What do you want?” I said, “I want to be baptized.”
He said, “Does your father know it?” Because he knew my father. I said, “No, but I feel the Lord told me to do it.”
Brothers and sisters, I believe you have experiences such as this. The Lord will begin with your life in bringing your emotion to the feet of Jesus. Is your emotion at the feet of Jesus?
Not only our emotion, but also our mind. You have read the story in Matthew Chapter 16. After Peter acknowledged Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, the Lord said, “Thou art Simon; thou art Peter. I will build My church upon this rock, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
You know how Peter was elated. But afterward, the Lord began to tell them how He would go to Jerusalem, how He would be killed, and how on the third day He would rise again.
You know what Peter did. Peter took hold of the Lord. You can see the picture in your mind. He took hold of the Lord and shook Him, saying, “Lord, never do that. You do not do it that way.”
You remember the Lord turned around and said, “Get thee behind Me, Satan, because thou art not mindful of the things of God, but of the things of men.”
Brothers and sisters, our minds need to be dealt with, to bring all our thoughts to the feet of Jesus.
Not only our mind, but even our will. God has created us with a will—an independent will—but He wants that will to be surrendered to Him.
You know the scene in Luke, when our Lord Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, how He prayed, “If it be possible, but not My will, Thy will be done.”
Brothers and sisters, is your will being brought to the feet of Jesus, or do you still have your own independent will? When God begins to show you what His will is, do you refuse because you have your own will?
So, dear brothers and sisters, Christian life is very real. In our daily living, the indwelling Holy Spirit is bringing us back to the Lord Jesus.
Our whole being will gradually be brought to the feet of Jesus. This is bringing all things to the feet of Christ, and this is our work.
So, brothers and sisters, do not think only of outward work. There is an inward work more important than outward work: whether every one of us will bring all things in our life to the feet of Jesus, that God’s eternal purpose may be fulfilled in us.
Some dear brothers and sisters may think these are little things, and yet they are so important. May the Lord help us to really, in our lives, be in tune with the eternal purpose of God concerning man.
Let us pray.
Dear Lord, as we share these simple things, yet they are so necessary and important in Thy eyes. Lord, we pray that we may not neglect our inner life. Do not allow us to be so involved in outward works that we forget there is an inward work that Thy Spirit is working in each one of us.
So, Lord, we commit ourselves to Thee and say, “Lord, by Thy Spirit, guide and lead us, that we may be able to bring all things in our lives to the feet of Jesus, that Thy eternal purpose may be fulfilled.” We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.