Thou art here. We commit this time into Thy hand and pray that Thou wouldst be the answer to all our questions. May Thy presence, which we saw evident this morning, enable us to hear now Thine own voice and be completely changed from glory to glory. We ask in Thy name. Amen.
This is supposed to be a time of questions and answers, but I always feel this is not quite the right term. The questions are all right, but the answer is questionable, because who can answer our questions if it is a real question?
Only God Himself can be the answer. Only He can answer it; nobody else can do it. So what we are doing this morning is trying to get rid of some of the obstacles to our questions, that we may be able to get the answer from the Lord Himself.
The Lord alone is our answer, and I think sooner or later we will find this very true. So bear with us as we try to remove some of your obstacles, so that you can go to the Lord for the right answer. May the Lord give you the right answer for your life.
I received two questions. Number one: “I would like to know if man was created primarily to defeat the enemy, since man was created a little lower than angels, or if, independently of the enemy, man would have been created for God’s glory.”
Now, this is a hypothetical question, because the Bible, the Word of God, has told us very clearly that God created man with a purpose. God never did anything without purpose. He is a God of purpose. So when He created man, He created man with a definite purpose. That is the reason why we are here.
From the Word of God, we are told that when God created man, there was a purpose behind His creation. The Word of God tells us that He created man with a very specific purpose in view.
He created man because He wanted man to be used by Him to defeat His enemy. As we have already said, for God to destroy His enemy is an easy thing. He can do it with a breath. But that will not give God glory.
So, in order that there may be glory to God, God, as the Bible tells us, created man for the reason that He is going to use man, a little lower than the angels, to defeat His enemy. And that will bring glory to God. This is definitely said in the Scripture.
Now, we do not and cannot go outside of the Bible and try to find something different. What we must do is receive whatever the Word tells us.
So, dear brothers and sisters, we do not need to speculate. We have the Word of God telling us very clearly that we were created with a purpose, and that purpose is that God wanted, and wants, to use us—a little lower than the angels—to defeat His enemy.
I think we need to learn how to accept what the Word of God tells us instead of trying to speculate upon anything. I think this is the only safe way before God.
Now, there is another question, but it is in Chinese, so I have to try to turn it into English. The question is: “In your second message, you closed your prayer by saying, ‘May God show us at what point we have hindered our rapture, so that the Lord has not come yet.’ As I recall, I loved my eldest son so much. I gave my first love to my eldest son, but he has now passed away. Show me how I could repent.”
Now, brothers and sisters, before we knew the Lord, I believe all of us had put our first love upon someone, something, or even ourselves more than God. We have all done that.
But thank God, after He has saved us, He has shown us that God has the first priority. We must love God with all our heart, with all our affection, and with all our strength.
You remember that our Lord Jesus Himself told us that if anyone should love his father or mother, brother or sister, children or wife, or even himself, more than Me, he cannot be My disciple.
God has a demand upon man. Before we believed in the Lord Jesus, we did not know this command. We did not know God’s purpose in creating us. Every one of us lived for something other than God.
That was our past life, and that was the life of which we had to repent in order to return to God’s original purpose in creating us.
We had all done that. But thank God, one day we realized that we must love God more than anything else. The Lord Jesus told us very clearly: if you love your father or mother, brother or sister, children or wife, or even yourself, more than Me, you cannot be My disciple.
This verse meant much to me, because it was this verse that brought me to the point of repentance. I loved my father so much that I disobeyed God’s command.
After I was saved, I thought I loved God with all my heart. But I soon discovered that this word was true. Because of my father, I could not obey one of God’s commandments.
What was it? It was this: “He who loves his father or mother more than Me cannot be My disciple.”
Thank God, after I was saved, I always wanted to be a disciple of Christ. But on this one thing, I found myself unable to obey. It was especially a matter of baptism.
My father was a Methodist preacher. When I was born, as a baby, he baptized me by sprinkling—a few drops of water on my head.
So after I was saved, when people began to tell me that I needed to be baptized by immersion because this is the only form in the Bible, I always argued with them.
Not because of the form, but because I said, “When my father baptized me by sprinkling, he baptized me in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I have to honor the name of God.”
So I refused to be baptized by immersion. But as I read the Bible, I discovered that this is what the Bible tells us. So what could I do?
I told God, “It is not convenient for me to be baptized by immersion now because of my father. I did not want to displease him. But after I am independent, then I will be baptized by immersion.”
But, dear brothers and sisters, God would not let me go. This question came to me again and again. Different people began to tell me about baptism by immersion, and I always argued with them: “I have to honor the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
One day I was visiting my friend, who lived next door to a watchman. Again, he mentioned to me this matter of immersion. I said, “No, I must honor the name of God.”
He found me helpless and hopeless, so he went to sleep. I was sitting there in his room, and I began to pray.
I said, “Lord, I have promised You that if I became independent, I would be baptized by immersion—not now.”
Brothers and sisters, this was the first time in my life that I heard what seemed to be an audible voice. I heard it, and the voice came to me:
He who loves his father, mother, and so forth,
cannot be My disciple.
There was nobody talking. God was speaking to me in His Word. When that happened, I was completely broken down.
I told the Lord, “It is my greatest desire to be Your disciple. I want to follow You, but this is not convenient at this time. I promise You, I will do it later.”
But then this word came to me again:
He who loves his father, mother, and so forth,
cannot be My disciple.
That word broke me down. I told the Lord, “I will obey.”
So I went down next door to the watchman and knocked on the door. He knew me and said, “What do you want?” I said, “I want to be baptized by immersion.”
He knew my father, so he said, “Does your father know about it?” I said, “No, but the Lord has told me to do it.” So I was baptized the next day.
And you know, brothers and sisters, after I was baptized, the Lord began to open my understanding. More and more things in the Word of God were revealed to me.
That was the beginning of my real spiritual life. Before that, I was saved and zealous, serving the Lord, as it were—going to the country to preach the gospel and praying for sick people. People considered me a very good Christian.
But, dear brothers and sisters, I was in darkness. When I obeyed the Lord, He opened my understanding. Heaven seemed to be open to me. I began to see more and more things in the Word of God. That was the beginning of my real spiritual life.
So, brothers and sisters, before we believed in the Lord, we all had done that because we did not know the Lord. But after we are saved, this is a challenge to all of us.
Is there anyone in your life whom you love more than Christ Jesus? If not other people, perhaps yourself.
This is something of which we have to repent and learn to love the Lord more than anyone, even more than ourselves. Otherwise, how can we be disciples of Jesus Christ?
This is a condition. This is a challenge to every believer. The Lord demands that we love Him more than anybody else. Have we done that?
When we have done that, you will discover that heaven begins to be open to you. Revelation after revelation will be given to you. This is the door to spiritual life.
That is the reason why, in the Great Commission, the Lord said, “Go, and baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” It is as if baptism is the door to spiritual understanding.
So, brothers and sisters, this brother who loved his eldest son more than anything else in the past—that was normal so far as human life is concerned. But after we have believed in the Lord Jesus, evidently this brother was challenged by the Word of God, though he did not know how to respond.
Thank God, the past is under the blood. Whatever we did in the past, when we repent, God has wiped our past away with the precious blood of our Lord Jesus. So there is no objection against this brother.
Just tell the Lord:
I repent of what I did in the past.
Thank You for having cleansed me with the precious blood.
I offer myself to You afresh today.
Guide and lead me on, that I may be a true disciple of Thine.
That is the prayer we can pray. Thank God, He promises to hear us. May this brother see that the past has been under the blood of our Lord Jesus, look up to the Lord, and press toward the goal.
I have received two questions, and the two questions, to some degree, overlap. I will read both of them, and then we can address the first and then the second.
The first question reads: “What does it mean to take a step of faith when there is no clear direction? Do we wait to hear what the Lord has to tell us, or should we go looking for what He has planned?”
The second question reads: “I am in college, and with that come many responsibilities and pressures: maintaining a good grade point average, résumé building, and then getting a job. I want to know the Lord, to seek His will, and not let the world anchor me down. Yet how do you balance the pressure of the world to get a sustainable, good job and forsaking all things, counting them as rubbish? Though others may think we collegians are unencumbered, I very much disagree.” Happy face.
Well, I will start by sharing that these are questions I have personally asked, and not that long ago. I will say, and repeat what Brother Kong just said: these questions need to be personally answered by the Lord to us.
These are heart questions. It is a good thing that we are wondering and searching for answers, because the world would tell us that it is very obvious: we should pursue all of our dreams and go our own way.
The first question asks, “What does it mean to take a step of faith when there is no clear direction?” Of course, that is the nature of faith. If there were a clear direction, we would see it with our eyes and know where to go.
But frequently we are put in a position where there is no obvious, clear direction in which the Lord wants us to go. So we need to ask. This is one of the Lord’s great ways of reaching us at particular points in our lives.
The Lord knows the concerns of our hearts, and He uses those moments to reach out to us by putting a question in our heart. He is hoping that we might reach out to Him and start a dialogue with Him surrounding that question. His ultimate goal, of course, is an increase in our life.
The step of faith—I do not know where that terminology originally came from—but we remember in Matthew 14 that the Lord had just fed the thousands near the Sea of Galilee. He asked His disciples to go first in a boat across the sea.
The disciples were in the boat during a stormy night. The waters were out of control. Then, in the middle of the night, the Lord decided, as only He can, “Well, I will walk to where they are.” So the Lord began to walk over the sea toward them.
The disciples saw Him and thought He was a ghost. Then Peter said, “Lord, if You call out to me, I will come to You on the water.” The Lord said, “Come.”
Peter had to take a step of faith. I do not know if that is the origin of the saying, but Peter certainly had to take a step of faith.
He had his eyes on the Lord, and he stepped out into the stormy sea. The Bible tells us the water was choppy; there were waves. While he was looking at the Lord, he began to walk on the water.
Then his eyes turned to the storm, the wind, and everything going on around him. He began to sink, called out to the Lord, and the Lord came to save him.
What does this have to do with the question? A step of faith happens when we have our eyes fixed on the Lord. We do not sink when our eyes are fixed on Him.
I will return to what I shared in the messages: sometimes we are tempted to think that if we can learn the steps to following Him, that is all we need. But we cannot do that, because the first and most important thing is that we see Christ and know Christ.
When we have that sense in our heart to see Him and look at Him, then at some point He gives us a step. Peter asked for it: “If You call out to me, I will come.” It was Peter’s suggestion, and then the Lord gave him confirmation.
Peter stepped out with a step of faith, and as long as he kept his eyes on the Lord, he was all right. I think the question is asking, “We want to go in the right direction, and we want to do the right thing.” That is a good thing. It is a heart to please Him.
The first and most important thing is that we keep our eyes fixed on the Lord, always seeking after Him and always having His desire in view.
I shared a little about Sarah yesterday. Hebrews says that Sarah considered Him faithful who had promised. The step of faith is not so much our own trusting that circumstances are right and saying, “I know this is probably what God wants, so I am just going to do it.”
The purpose of these things is that we would have an increasing view of the Lord. Brother Dana was sharing about how we see the Lord, then know the Lord, and then have faith to follow and take a step. That leads to a further increase in seeing and knowing the Lord, and then another step.
What we see with Peter is that he saw the Lord, the Lord gave him an instruction, and he followed it. He had to keep his eyes forward. So the first thing I would say is: keep our eyes on the Lord.
The second thing is this: Romans 10 tells us that faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ. This Word of Christ is not a dead word; it is a living Word that can be communicated to us through the life of the Holy Spirit.
The brother or sister who wrote the question gave us two choices: do we wait to hear what the Lord has to tell us, or should we go looking for what He has planned? I think the second suggestion—to go looking for what He has planned—means that we ask Him.
We can do many things in seeking what He has planned. We can ask other brothers and sisters, which is often helpful. We can search the Word of God, which is always helpful. And we can pray, which is always helpful.
Asking the Lord is really important because, in these moments when we do not know which direction to go, we think that direction is the important thing. But what the Lord is really looking for is a deeper relationship, so that we consult with Him and inquire of Him.
He wants us to have an increasing heart that says, “I only want to be with You. I want to see You and be near to You.” These things are so important to Him that even if we did the right thing or went in the right direction, if we lost that, we would not really have gained what we should gain.
When I was preparing for the messages and reading about Abel, I thought about Cain and Abel. Cain was the first one who thought of giving an offering. From a worldly and legal point of view, both men thought about giving an offering, and both brought offerings.
We know some details about the differences between their offerings, but why was one looked upon with regard and not the other? We might choose the right thing to do, yet miss an opportunity.
Taking a step of faith is not just a matter of direction. It is a matter of searching to be closer to the Lord and allowing the Word knowledge to become real in our hearts.
Sometimes He stays silent longer than we would like. I am saying this from personal experience; I remember these things happening to me. Sometimes He stays silent longer than we would like, but He wants us to keep after Him and not be willing to take a step without Him.
Sometimes, in mercy, He will close all our doors except one. We ask Him, and it seems that this would be the right way. But many times He closes all the doors except two, and then we need to seek Him out, inquire of Him, and think about things of eternal value.
One thing is for sure: the Lord loves the heart that is seeking after Him for the right way to go, and He uses that to cause us to grow up.
The fact is, the Lord is often interested in something bigger. You or I may have a question in life about which direction to go, but there may be a deeper question: perhaps I have no patience to wait for Him, or I am so anxious that I am not willing to take a step of faith to follow Him.
Each of us struggles differently with these things. The Lord may take the question that we think is most important and use it to teach us a lesson about what really is most important.
We may think the decision is, “Should I choose A or B?” But the Lord may be trying to teach us to trust Him, have patience, and listen for His voice. The decision itself is not always the most important thing to Him. The Lord is seeking for us to seek Him.
Finally, this is a very personal topic. Some of these things we cannot learn from a book or simply by talking to someone about them. The Lord wants us to go out there and learn it in the field. It is field learning.
So I think we should keep our eyes on the Lord, ask Him, pray, and wait for His answer. I hope that is of help.
The second question gives a little more detail about the brother or sister who is in college, with many responsibilities and pressures: maintaining good grades, building a résumé, and getting a job. The question is how to know the Lord, seek His will, and not let the world anchor us down.
Last year I received a similar question. I want to give some context so that we understand the world in which our brothers and sisters are living.
Over the last twenty years or so, the economy of the world has been changing. The cost of living has gone up, and we know that.
The workforce is now structured in such a way that larger companies can choose from many candidates. Someone who hires people can look at a candidate and say, “This is your salary, but these are your job expectations.”
You look at the job expectations and realize that they cannot be fulfilled in a forty-hour work week. What they are asking may really require sixty hours.
I was speaking with a brother from New York City, and he told me that nowadays ninety hours is normal. At sixty hours, you are almost on the brink of being removed from your job. These have become cultural norms.
Salaries may be going up, but the work hours required have gone up by a greater factor. The cost of living has also gone up. So we, as brothers and sisters, bear this burden: How do I get these jobs? How do I maintain these jobs?
If I told them that I wanted to work forty hours a week, I might lose that job, and they could choose any number of people to replace me.
Furthermore, everyone knows that homes are now so expensive. It is a pressure on us. We fathers look at our children and want to be able to provide for them. These are the realities of the world in which many people are growing up.
So I can understand what this brother or sister is writing. How do I get desirable jobs? But the central question is: How do you balance the pressure of the world versus counting all things as loss?
I do not mean to be harsh, but the truth is that there is no balance. When we try to be in both places, the world will pull us down.
We have to set it in our minds that balance is not the answer. This is hard—really hard. But when we try to balance with the world, the world will always get the better part.
The enemy is so crafty these days, and his strategies are so sophisticated, that when we try to balance the Lord with the world, the Lord gets the short end of the stick. Eventually, we may not even realize how far and how steadily we have fallen away.
This is much easier said than lived, but I think it is important for us to set a standard in our hearts. When I was growing up, I listened to brothers speak, and they set a standard: look at the Lord and look at nothing else.
In our circles, it is not easy to be a Sunday Christian, and that is a good thing. The brothers whom the Lord has led have set a standard for us to look at the Lord and say, “You are going to be everything.”
When the enemy’s temptation comes to balance with the world, that is where we will always end up sliding down. We have to establish in our hearts that there is no balance; we are going to be for the Lord.
Now, that does not mean we are not going to get a job. Working is part of normal life, and there is nothing wrong with getting a job. Getting a job does not necessarily mean that we are tied to the world.
But we need to be careful and ask the Lord about every job opportunity. I would even suggest asking the Lord about every night of study. Pray before you study.
When the Lord began to convict me in my life and I was taking organic chemistry, I used to put the book down and pray before I began to study. I do not know why that idea came into my mind, but it helped me very much to keep in context what was happening.
There is nothing wrong with getting a job, but this is under the Lord’s headship.
The question asks, “How do we get a good job?” Well, how do we define a good job? We have to be honest with ourselves about that.
The world would tell us that a good job has certain criteria: good pay, upward mobility, and prestige. These are all things the whole world is looking for.
I would suggest that a good job is one that provides the practical things, such as being able to support your family, but also gives us an opportunity to draw closer to the Lord.
Many jobs draw us away from the Lord. We have to consider those matters before the Lord and ask Him about them, because many jobs will replace the Lord in our lives.
There are wonderful believers in such jobs, and they stand out like a sore thumb because they bear such wonderful testimonies. I was telling my brother this morning about Francis Collins.
I do not know whether you all know Francis Collins. In my world, he is a giant. He was the head of the National Institutes of Health and the Human Genome Project, and he is a devoted Christian.
In that world, there are not many people like him. He has borne a testimony in a dark place in the world.
So the thing we always come back to is this: ask the Lord. Ask the Lord about every situation, every day. If the Lord leads you to it, pray before you study, pray before your tests, and give everything to Him.
Make sure not to choose a job that compromises your faith. Do not go into something where cheating is applauded, or where you cannot succeed without cheating.
Do not go into a job, brothers and sisters, that steals you from meeting with the saints. That is so critical, because that is always a draw away from the Lord.
Do not go into a job that steals you from meeting with the saints in the Body of Christ. That is all I had prepared. I hope that is of help.
It is wonderful that we can be together for these times, young and old. Poor David had to answer all the young people’s questions—the millennials. They have so many questions. When you are old, you have all the answers, if you can remember the questions.
That is because you have pretty much given up and said, “Well, Lord, You will have to do it.” That is the answer. But I digress.
Somebody asked a question. Of course, it was for Brother Kong, but that goes without saying. It has now been given to me. It is a wonderful question because it has a specific application. They want to know about the corporate life.
The question is: “The Lord said, ‘I am the First and the Last.’ How do we learn corporately in the church that He is the First and the Last?”
That is actually a wonderful question. If you were listening to Brother Stephen on the first day, you will see the context of what they were saying.
Turn to Revelation 1. We see John as he falls before the vision of this glorious King and High Priest, who is the Lord Jesus Himself.
When he sees this vision, he collapses as if dead. Revelation 1:17 says:
When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man.
And He placed His right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid;
I am the First and the Last, and the living One;
and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore,
and I have the keys of death and of Hades.”
Brother Stephen, in speaking concerning the seven churches, said that more important, in one sense, than hearing what the Lord says to the churches is seeing Him as over the church.
The place to begin is to see Him as the First and the Last. Having done that, we are able to understand His commendations and rebukes in the light of Who He is.
With every church to which the Lord Jesus speaks specifically, He speaks to them under a certain aspect of this vision. In Revelation 2, to the church in Ephesus, He speaks as the One who holds the seven stars in His right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands.
What the Lord is saying is, “Before I say anything, do you see Me standing in your midst, holding the servants of God in My right hand and standing among you as the lampstand? Do you see that? Then you can listen to these words.”
As soon as we see the Lord, there is an adjustment made. For this specific question—“I am the First and the Last”—notice that to the church in Smyrna, He specifically comes and says, “Look at Me.”
The church of Smyrna needed to see that He was the beginning and the end as much as they needed to hear what He wanted to say.
To the angel of the church in Smyrna write:
The First and the Last, who was dead and has come to life, says this.
Do you see Me? Here is what I say to you.
My first question would be personal before we get to the corporate: have we seen the First and the Last? Have we seen Him as the First and the Last?
In a general way, if you see the Lord Jesus as the First and the Last—the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega, and actually Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, and so forth—that is what He means by Alpha and Omega.
He does not mean merely, “I am the first letter and the last letter; you fill in the others.” No. “I am every letter of your life.” Have we seen that?
As a little Bible quiz, when do we first see the Lord call Himself the First and the Last? I will give you a hint: He does not say Alpha and Omega, because He says it in Hebrew. Alpha and Omega are Greek letters.
You find it in Isaiah 40 and several times in those passages, where He says, “I am.” What does that mean? The beginning and the end.
He says, “Israel, you have come back from captivity. I want you to testify to the world that there is only one God, and I hold your history in My hands. I took you, I gave you birth, I led you through the wilderness, I led you into the promised land, I took you into captivity, and I brought you back. I am the First and the Last.”
You are part of My story. I like that, David. It is millennial talk. We are part of His story—history, you get it? It is a little trick. The Chinese did not translate that very well.
We are part of history. When you realize that, something immediately drops off your shoulders. What is it? “I have questions. What do we do?” But He says, “I am the First and the Last. I have already answered your questions.”
“I am the First and the Last.” What question could you have? Job had basically thirty-eight chapters of questions, and then the First and the Last showed up. Did you notice that Job had no more questions?
When we hear Brother David sharing in the context of the millennials, they are almost like windup toys: questions, questions, running around here and there. “What should I do? What college should I choose? What job?” Boom, boom.
The Lord has to let you go until your winder winds down. Finally, you hit the last wall and say, “I give up.” Then He says, “I am the First and the Last of your life. I knew you before you were born.”
“All those things that led to your salvation, I arranged. Now, do you think I can choose a job for you? I have already chosen your future.”
Now, in terms of the church, if we see that He is the First and the Last, let me get a little mystic for a moment.
In the largest sense, when we see Him come to His church as the First and the Last, we realize that this bride was chosen in Him before the foundation of the world.
The whole Old Covenant history was to prepare for the bride, and through Jesus He formed the bride. He was the beginning of the bride when, out of His side, came the blood and the water, and the church was born.
At Pentecost the Spirit came down, and He was the beginning of the whole thing. If you want to understand the church, you must see that what He began at Calvary and Pentecost is already complete in the New Jerusalem.
He will do it. He was the Alpha; He is the Omega. Sometimes, when I see the condition of the church, I say, “This is hopeless. How can we ever be prepared, be His bride, be holy, and be pleasing to Him?”
He says, “I have chosen. I have purposed. I will do it.”
The next place we see, “I am the First and I am the Last,” is at the very end of Revelation. Let us look at that for a moment, just to underscore what I have said.
John is brought to the Omega of where the church is going. There are seven churches in Asia Minor, and John is still on this planet, burdened about them. Then the Spirit lifts him up and lets him see Revelation 21.
As he sees the new heaven and earth coming in, Revelation 21:2 says:
And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,
made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.
There it is: the bride will be ready. The church will be the New Jerusalem, and it will be adorned for her Husband.
Then, after describing God tabernacling permanently with man in the New Jerusalem, Revelation 21:6 says:
It is done.
I am the Alpha and the Omega,
the beginning and the end.
One of the real breakthroughs in my own personal life was when I saw that the church was already glorious. It is done.
In the heavenly places, when Jesus walked in and offered the perfect sacrifice in the true tabernacle which is in heaven, all the work was done for a glorious church.
From that moment on, what the Lord has been doing is bringing gold, pearls, and precious stones into His city through our lives, until the New Jerusalem is complete.
It has been done, and it is perfect. But now it is being added to through our lives as He produces gold, precious stone, and pearl in us.
When I saw that, I said, “Lord, it is going to work. You have done it. If You have done it, it means down here You will do it, because we have to see ‘It is finished’ before we can see that it is finishing.”
How do we learn corporately in the church that He is the First and the Last? Let me take it in terms of our conference this week.
The church cannot live under this vision unless we see Him as the First and the Last. As we are gathered together, especially among the leadership, somewhere along the line we need to see that He is standing in our midst.
This is not a doctrine. When this revelation was written, and the seven churches received it, do you think that as one of the brothers stood up and read the letter before the congregation in Smyrna, they saw the Lord standing in their midst as the First and the Last, who was dead and is now alive?
If they saw Him, then they could hear His message. To Smyrna, the message was, “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I have your whole destiny in My hands. Do not be afraid.”
The second message was, “You are rich, not poor. Do not let persecution and difficulty make you think that you are poor. You are rich because you have Me.”
The third message was, “Be faithful unto death.” Why? Because “I was dead and now am alive, and the second death cannot hurt you.”
If you see Who I am, whatever you have to go through—even if some of you are thrown into prison or martyred—I am the beginning and end of your life. Your life will not end one moment sooner than I have determined.
When your life is laid down, even as a martyr for My sake, you will never face the second death, because I was dead and now am alive, and you are alive. I am your resurrection life.
If they heard that, they could overcome the persecutions in Smyrna. The first thing the church needs to see is that He is the First and the Last.
However the church grew up, however the gathering developed, and however you are meeting together, at some point perhaps the Lord would open heaven and let us see: “I am really invested in you. I am here. Look at Me.”
“I am inspecting the lampstand. I am looking you over closely because, as I told you in My Word, I love you. I will wash you and take away every wrinkle and blemish. That is why I am here in your midst.”
There is a theology today among the larger church, and among us, concerning the presence of God. We want the presence of God. All the choruses speak of feeling the presence of God.
But when He is really here, it is awesome. It is humbling in His presence.
We gather week to week. Many of you may gather in groups that break bread, hear the Word of God, teach the children, and hold prayer meetings. Would it not be wonderful if you could sense His feet standing in your midst?
“I am very near. I know what you need. I am the First; I am the Last. Whatever your problems are, I have overcome them.”
Especially when we see, “I am the First; I am the beginning and the end; I was dead and now I am alive,” we see what John saw in the vision of Jesus: the church is on resurrection ground.
Whatever is not there, He is going to trim away. “I am the First and the Last. I was dead and now I am alive. This church is now alive in My presence, on resurrection ground.”
The first thing we have to do is see Him. See Him, know Him, follow Him. But first you have to see Him.
If we do not see Him and understand that our destiny is in His hand and that He is sovereign, then we will continue to be filled with questions.
When God shows up and you see Him, I think you stop asking questions. For the church that has many questions, the first thing is that when He shows up, you do not have questions. He is absolute.
The Lord wants to recover His church, but we must allow Him to come into the midst and sovereignly speak without questioning Him.
There was one group I visited every other year or so. Fifteen or twenty years ago, there were many young people. It was a church that seemed to have more young people than adults, and they were all millennials. They always had questions.
I would speak a series of messages, other brothers would speak, and then we would come to the question-and-answer time. They had more questions. I did not know where they got them from. Were they going on the internet to find these questions?
As soon as you started telling them an answer, they were busy discovering another question.
In the presence of the Beginning and the End, we bow before the Lord and say, “Lord, the only way to recover and perfect Your church and get Your bride ready is for You to have the absolute say. Be the I AM. Show us the way to go.”
Do we see Him like that? I confess to you that many assemblies do not see the Lord. They may talk about His presence and even feel His presence, but the first key is to see Him as the Beginning.
He is the Head. He is the Lord. He wants to become the practical Lord of the church—the practical Head.
In other words, He is before all things, and He is Head over all things to the church. Everything we do needs to be filtered through the Head.
There should no longer be independent actions by members, all jerking and gyrating according to their own ministry. There should be something coordinated because it is under the Head.
He is the Beginning. So where do we begin? How do we begin this recovery?
How did the remnant begin that recovery when they came back from Babylon? They set up an altar. They sacrificed, and they worshiped. They sacrificed and worshiped. They sacrificed and worshiped.
That is the first thing: we come to our God as the Beginning and see Him perfecting the church.
When I saw the Lord in the midst of the lampstands, I saw that the Lord really wants His church to be pure gold. That is the lampstand. That is why He is there. That is what He sees.
He will do whatever is necessary to make that church a lampstand all of gold.
We have seen that He is the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega, the One who was dead and is alive, and that He is here in our midst. Now, what do we know?
We need to know something in order for the Lord to transform the church into His precious bride. What is the Lord looking for as He stands in the midst of us?
It should not shock you to know that none of these seven churches was a perfect church. It is because there were sinners in them. Only in our churches are they perfect? No.
He is not looking for a perfect church. That might throw you. He is looking to perfect the church, but He does not look for a perfect church.
What is He looking for? People may think He is looking for numbers: “How many people did we get saved last year? How wonderful is our worship? How many people attend our prayer meeting? What have we bound and loosed?”
But here is what the Lord is looking for: He poured His life out for us. Standing on resurrection ground, the church needs to reveal the life of Christ as the lampstand, with His light and life on top.
He is looking for His own life.
Of course, He knows we are not going to be perfect, nor will we perfectly express that life. That is why He keeps breaking our vessels, that the glory may come out.
When He looked at Ephesus, what was wrong? “I poured agape love into you. Where has it gone? You are busy, ministering, and faithful in many ways, but I gave you love, and that agape has gone missing.”
“If you do not have agape love, you are not representing Me. Now repent, or I will take away the lampstand. What good is it to have a lampstand if there is no love on top of it?”
God is love, and Jesus is love. Do you see what I am saying? He is looking for Himself.
Through all seven churches, you see that He is looking for Himself. How can He be the Beginning and the End in our local assembly? We should know that He is looking for Himself.
This is a matter of character development in our lives. It is a matter of preserving the unity of the Spirit, which is so important to the Lord. It is a matter of doing things in the Spirit of Christ and not merely in our own flesh.
There is a lot of dealing there. That is why, in each of the seven churches, He comes with a commendation and, in most cases, a need for repentance.
It is wonderful if any assembly sees the Lord standing in the midst, sees the Lord looking for Himself, and has a desire in its heart—however far short it may fall.
We should desire in our hearts to testify, to be the testimony of Jesus, and to hold up the true testimony of Who Jesus is in our corporate life.
When people come in, meet us, worship with us, and visit us, they should see Jesus. We need to see Him, and we need to know what He is after. He is looking for Himself in the midst.
Having seen Him and known Him in the church, then we follow Him. What does that mean?
Again, it starts with faith. If you really know that He is the beginning and the end, and really see what He wants in the church, then here is my third challenge to faith: Do you hear Him as He is speaking now?
Jesus said to each of the churches:
He who has an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit is saying to the churches.
We follow as we hear what He says. He told John to send the letters to the seven churches, and each church was to read what was said to the other six churches.
We need to hear what the Spirit is saying regarding commendation, repentance, and reward.
Do we hear what the Lord is saying? If we are really hearing the Lord in our assembly, then there will be adjustments that involve repentance.
We should not be an assembly that has stopped repenting. There are many adjustments to be made. No group has recovered the testimony of Jesus in such a way that it does not need more of the cross and more adjustment in the light of Him as the Beginning and the End.
He wants to be Alpha and Omega to us. He wants to shine through the church, and this involves repentance and adjustment.
It also involves holding on to His Word. Think of the church of Philadelphia: He commended them for holding fast the Word. “Hold fast. I have opened a door. Now go through.”
Not only will we hear the Lord asking us to repent, but we will also hear the Lord telling us to do things according to His Word. We should be faithful.
Those are the ones who follow the Lord: the called, chosen, and faithful. As it says in Revelation, they follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. This is what the Lord is looking for in His assemblies.
Finally, if we allow the Lord to be in the midst, to be the Beginning and the End and everything in between, as He brings us, perfects us, and prepares us as the bride, then we come to the Omega. Omega is when it has been done.
In Revelation 22, in the final summing up of things, we again see the Alpha, the Omega, the beginning, and the end. Here is what He says:
Behold, I am coming quickly,
and My reward is with Me,
to render to every man according to what he has done.
I am the Alpha and the Omega,
the First and the Last,
the beginning and the end.
This is the last revelation, as it were, that Jesus presents to John as he receives this revelation.
See Me. Know Me. Follow Me. My reward. I am coming quickly. My reward is for those who have been this way.
We gather together as imperfect assemblies. There is still much to be done. But is that lampstand there? Is Jesus right there by the lampstand?
Is He able to inspect us and, by the Spirit, bring to our minds the things that need to be adjusted? Do we understand what He is after in the church in terms of His life?
Perhaps I have overspelled it, but I believe it is so important for the church in these last days to live under a vision that is bringing us toward His goal, toward His Omega—the New Jerusalem.
We need to see Him in order to press on.
I guess this is the end. We have a dear brother who loves to be with us more than life itself, and he usually comes up and gives the ending.
Brother Hosea actually fell ill this morning, and our brother Jose is not able to be here. He usually gets up and shares a wonderful Scripture with us, saying, “It is all Christ. It is all done. We praise the Lord.”
He loves these times, and our dear brother cannot be with us this morning. So let us remember him.
He has been such a dear brother and, in a certain sense, one who has carried the Harvey Cedars Conference in his heart over the years. Dear, dear brother. Nobody would like to be here more than he would, but he is prevented today from being here.
Let us praise God. I think Brother Ben has a final song for us to sing. We can sing, perhaps have a few prayers, and then go.