This week, in one way or another, all of us are pursuing this great purpose of God. Our God is a great God. When He determines to do something, He is going to do it. And He has in His heart the absolute glorification of His Son, Jesus Christ, as all things in the world—even things in the heavenlies, the angels, as well as things on earth—come under His domain, His headship, His rule, and His life.
This is a great and marvellous purpose. Its dimensions are so vast that it would be impossible for any three brothers, in a few sessions, to try to cover these things. But we have tried to share in such a way that it would invite us to pursue, go deeper, and understand this tremendous mystery of God’s purpose.
Tonight, I would like to begin again in Ephesians 1. Then we are going to read fragments from different sections of the New Testament to get a perspective as co-workers serving the purpose of God in our generation.
That is where we are going to be. That is where we can serve His purpose.
In Ephesians 1:9–10:
He made known to us the mystery of His will,
according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him,
with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times,
that is, the summing up of all things in Christ,
things in the heavens and things on the earth, even in Him.
Turn to Matthew 24. We want to get to the edge of time, and these verses help us.
Matthew 24:6–8:
You will be hearing of wars and rumours of wars.
See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end.
Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom,
and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes.
But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.
There was one today in California.
Later on, after some parables we are all familiar with—about those walking up a hill and those in the field and bed, et cetera—Jesus concludes in Matthew 24:43–44:
But be sure of this, that if the head of the household had known at what time of the night the thief was coming,
he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into.
For this reason you also must be ready;
for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will.
Then some verses from 1 John. We will begin in 1 John 4:1–4:
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God,
because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
By this you know the Spirit of God:
every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God;
and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.
This is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming,
and now it is already in the world.
You are from God, little children, and have overcome them;
because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.
First John 5:4–5:
For whatever is born of God overcomes the world;
and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.
Who is the one who overcomes the world,
but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
And then, in 1 John 5:19:
We know that we are of God,
and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
Finally, a few verses from Revelation. Revelation 1:7–8:
Behold, He is coming with the clouds,
and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him;
and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him.
So it is to be. Amen.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God,
who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
Revelation 22:12–13:
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.
We do praise and thank You, Lord, that even our little children gain some sense of the greatness of Christ, and that in their little hearts some of them, like David, truly want to serve Your purpose, listen to You, follow You, and forgive as You have forgiven.
We are thankful for the worship that has gone before. Now, with our hearts full of grace and gratitude, we come to You, Lord, and ask that You help us in this last evening ministry. As You are summing up all things in Christ, somehow sum up our lives and our desire to serve the purpose of God in this generation.
Lord, we do not know how long we have until this age ends, but we want to be found faithful whenever that time comes. So encourage us by Your precious Word, by the indwelling Holy Spirit. We commit this time into Your hands, in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
We are considering the highest calling of a Christian, higher than being a preacher or a teacher: serving the purpose of God in our generation.
In one sense, there is no specific calling. Okay, what does that mean I have to do? But actually, it is in your doing, in your various doings, with a heart toward the Lord, that you serve the purpose of God in this generation.
Grace has been our theme. We have been saved by grace. We have been drawn into the riches of His grace. We have been bathed in His love. We have been filled with the Holy Spirit. We have been taking freely of His lavish grace, given to us in the hors d’oeuvres of the kingdom here in His grace room, as we have stood.
This is very personal. Each one of us has been saved by a God who loves us personally very much. He has laid hold of us, and hopefully, in serving His purpose, we will lay hold of Him.
The day comes, as we have talked about, when faith’s eyes see something more about Jesus than we ever saw before. We see the glory of Christ—the living Christ. Every time that happened in the Scriptures, men fell down before such a vision of glory.
In our hearts, we see this Christ of glory. It is Christ in us, the hope of glory. As we see that Christ within, as Christ is revealed within us, it gives us that ministry as the life of Christ works its way out in our lives. We see Him in His kingdom, upon His throne, with great power, and we are captured by His beauty—by His glorious beauty.
Even as Isaiah saw the Lord and fell down, even as John saw the Lord and fell down, even as Paul saw the Lord and fell down, we are captured by His glory.
This is a great revelation, and it thrills us. Because, if you think about it, this Saviour whom we have come to know is at the very centre of God’s largest cosmic plan. We could want no better Person at the centre of everything. Aren’t you glad He is the King of kings? I am glad He is going to rule everything.
Things sound really upbeat when we realize that Jesus has been placed in the centre of all God’s plans, and it is the Jesus we know. So we can bet that this is going to be a marvellous time in the fullness of times, when all these things happen. It thrills us.
Yet the initial revelation of who Jesus is, even of His glory, although it captures us, does not become a vision. A revelation becomes a vision when we see how we fit into that vision.
It is one thing to see the glory of Christ, but when we have a vision of Christ, it apprehends and captures us because somehow we have seen ourselves in that eternal purpose. Sometimes we can talk about this eternal purpose in a doctrinal way, as a very heavy thought, and yet not feel connected to it at all.
But when one truly sees a vision of God’s eternal purpose, we immediately sense a calling. Out of such a revelation of His glory comes a calling. If you have seen the Christ of glory, you have heard the calling.
As Paul put it in Ephesians 1, now that you have seen that Christ is the centre of God’s whole eternal plan, I want you, by the eyes of your heart, to see what is the hope of His calling in you. How does that calling work out in you? Ah, the hope of His calling.
For the first ten years of my Christian life, before I ever came to the conference, I always read that as, “You might know what is the hope of your calling,” because I am a self-centred person. I wanted to know the hope of my calling. It took me stumbling over the word His to realize that it is not talking about seeing my calling. It is about seeing His calling, but it is about seeing my calling in His calling. Now, do you get it? It is a little trickier than I first thought.
As a matter of fact, to understand our calling, we have to look away from our calling and see His great calling. Now, what is the hope of His great calling? He is going to be a Bridegroom. He is going to be King of kings. He is going to be Lord of lords. He is going to be everything. Wow, this is pretty hopeful. What a calling. What vastness.
Now, where do you see yourself in that calling? Ah, you see, when we see a vision of Him, we sense our calling.
When Isaiah saw a vision of God, he fell down and said, “Oh, woe is me. I am a man of unclean lips.” But five minutes later, like a dunce, he says, “Here am I. Send me.” He felt the call.
Grace gives such an atmosphere of acceptance that we go in and say, “Yes, here am I. Send me.” Right? Paul, on the road to Damascus, saw that Shekinah glory. It should have annihilated him because it was so full of glory. He fell on the ground and was completely undone in his ministry as a Pharisee and a persecutor. But five minutes later he says, “Lord, what would You have me to do?” Such suckers.
You know, when you really see the Lord by revelation, do not ask Him what you should do. But you cannot help it.
Now, I do not know if I agree with Calvinists. About ninety percent, I do. But here is one interesting thing they say: God’s grace is irresistible. Do you think it is irresistible? I wish it were. Then everybody gets saved, if I understand what that means.
But I would have to say it is awfully hard to experience God’s grace, and then hear His loving call, and not say, “Here am I. Send me. Speak, Lord, Your servant hears,” whatever the case may be. Have you been drawn by His grace? Has He captured you by His glory?
We talked about that, did we not? Then I got you in a lot of trouble last night, because I said that one of the things we learn is that He starts to pull us, in His inexorable power, from grace to glory.
We would imagine that would be a wonderful path: “I am going from glory to glory. He is saving me, glory to glory to glory”—down through the hallway of tribulation. You say, “Oh, wait a minute. Where did that come in the song?”
From the grace room to the glory rooms, by the hallway of tribulation. Or, as I say to young people, you are going through the car wash. He has locked your car up. Just put it in neutral, because you are going through. You cannot stop His sanctifying process.
The Holy Spirit is—well, sometimes He is even called by certain theologians feminine, because the Holy Spirit is such a nag. You can tell some theologians are a little bit—I do not want to get into this whole thing.
But let me put it this way: the Holy Spirit is relentless. When He convicts you, He convicts you. You cannot even sleep anymore until you deal with your sin. He will not leave you alone.
That is why it is so wonderful when you speak the gospel to one of your friends and he says, “Well, I do not believe that. I do not believe the Bible. I do not believe Jesus saved me.” You say, “Well, He did, and He died on the tree to save you from your sins.”
The guy goes home and says, “I do not believe it.” Then all night long the Holy Spirit says, “Oh, yes, He did. Oh, yes, He did. Oh, yes, He did. Oh, yes, He did.”
If there is anybody who does things precept upon precept, it is the Holy Spirit.
Now, the Holy Spirit has a notation: “Note from heaven: Dana has been saved by grace. Take him to glory. Do whatever You need to do to get him there.” The Holy Spirit took that seriously.
He might have to put me through the double car wash. You know, you pay that extra ten dollars and they de-rust the bottom of the car and the whole thing. I needed the whole works, for sure. I am still halfway through, but there you are. We are on the way to glory. Praise God.
It is a spiritual principle. The Holy Spirit fell upon the Lord Jesus and then drove Him into the wilderness to be tempted. There is a principle in that.
He gives us, by the grace of God, the Holy Spirit who holds us and comforts us, and then sends us through those things that deal with our sins, deal with our flesh, deal with who we are, and transform us into the likeness of Christ. The Holy Spirit is relentless in this character development.
This character development is to fit us as servants of the purpose of God in our generation.
Eventually, obviously, you should come out of the hallway and serve God’s purpose. One of the most precious things you discover while you are in a hallway of tribulation—problems, dealings, everything—is how precious the Lord Himself is. He meets you there in the hallway. Can you believe it?
You would think He would say, “Ah, as soon as you come out on the other side of the tunnel, then I will start talking to you again.”
I live in New York City, and I go to this wonderful fellowship out in Queens. One of the things that means is that I have to go underneath the East River six times a week. I think it is ten dollars a pop now, so sixty dollars a week to go under the East River in the Midtown Tunnel.
The Midtown Tunnel, I reckon, is maybe two miles long. When you are going through there at thirty-five miles an hour, it seems like it takes just a minute to get through. But, boy, when there is a traffic jam, you start to notice the leaking water coming down the walls, and you imagine you hear creaking sounds and all kinds of wild things. It can be a long trip when a truck runs out of gas in front of you, whatever the case may be.
Then you realize that actually the first half of your trip is downhill. The reason you realize it is that you do not put on the gas; you just take your foot off the brake and you are going about four miles an hour, which is really fast for the Midtown Tunnel.
But you are going downhill. Strangely, you get a mile in and you are going uphill. You do not realize that when you are just going, “Whoo.” But when you are going slowly, you realize how many times you have to take your foot off the brake, put the accelerator on, put the brake back down, and yell at the guy, “Hey, move it! Where are you?” That is the way it comes.
Here is what I want to say. As we go through the tunnel, we experience what people sometimes call the cross, the work of the cross in our lives. Indeed, this is true.
But can I be honest with you? It is not that you go through the work of the cross as if it were some kind of impersonal big stick called the cross, and you get whonked with it all the time. No, no, no, a thousand times no. Boom, boom.
Actually, as you go down the slope in the Midtown Tunnel, you meet Christ crucified. You do not need a principle; you meet a Person—Christ crucified.
He instructs you and vetoes those things that are not to be made through the tunnel. You have to lay down things and be stripped of things, but it is a personal Christ crucified who deals with you.
That is why Paul did not say, “Well, those Corinthians are so fleshy. All I can do is preach the cross.” What did he say? “No, I can only preach Christ crucified.” Because you meet Christ in the cross as He is dealing with you on the downward slope.
Is it not wonderful that there is an upward slope, where you meet the power of His resurrection? “I am the resurrection and the life.” There is nothing that He forces us to drop or let go of—things of our own self—that is valuable. There is nothing laid down that does not cause His life to fill that place.
As you begin to come out of the tunnel, the Lord has made at least this transformation in us: we realize that our life is from now on to be His life lived in me. We meet Christ, the resurrection and the life.
Some people here have gone through awfully deep tunnels, long hallways, and real tribulations. But if I understand that you are on that track of His eternal purpose, through it all you have met the Lord: Christ crucified, Christ the resurrection and the life.
Paul meant much more by this than what I am saying here, but at least Paul says:
That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection,
and the fellowship of His sufferings.
That is the upward side. The Lord meets us there, and He teaches us there.
If you have been through a hallway of tribulation with the Lord, He is more precious to you than before you went in. It is amazing that a Lord so great, who has such a vast plan, has time to walk down into a hallway where you are going through darkness, holding on to the wall and taking a step, but not sure why you are there.
Your plans are not working out. Things did not happen around you. Tragedy has befallen you. Frustration has been your portion. All of your plans have not worked out. Some people have even been through a Job-like experience that is inexplicable.
Still, through it all, what did Job meet in the end? El Shaddai. That is what Job called God throughout his book: El Shaddai, His full provision. He met Him and saw Him with the seeing of the eye as he went through the hallway of tribulation.
When we go through these things, the Lord does not leave us to ourselves or leave us bereft. No, that is when He visits us, because He knows that in our weakness we can find His strength and His life.
Through this whole experience, we come to two kinds of knowing. There is the knowing by revelation in our spirit of something true about the Lord. Then there is real knowledge through experience, walking with the Lord through a situation.
The Lord shows us a revelation of His lordship. Then He teaches us until we understand His lordship, as He deals with our life and says, “No, that has to go. Yes, that is right. No, that is wrong.” We learn how to follow the Lord with our neck in His yoke.
There is a revelation experience, but Paul is praying for more than that: that you might have a real knowledge of Jesus Christ your Lord. There is nothing that substitutes for that.
The third thing we mentioned last night along this line of the hallway was this: as we go through this mystery of His eternal purpose, it explains so much in our life that was an inexplicable quandary, something we were confused about. “Why has this happened?”
Then we see the purpose of God, like Job, and we understand. We understand the Lord has reasons why He brings us through all these things. Some people go through things that are so deep that they will only learn, I suppose, in glory why certain things happened.
Meanwhile, even when you do not have an answer, you have the Lord with you, and that is your answer.
We all have much to learn, and we are deepened in this experience. All the time, we are transformed from glory to glory through the whole thing.
But now we come out. Let us put it this way: now we come out into the sunlight on the other side of the tunnel. Here we are to serve the purpose of God in our generation. He has been building and working in our character to some degree. He has been bringing our self-life to death. He has been filling us with the Holy Spirit. He has been teaching us the Word of God. He has been aligning our character to the likeness of Christ. So we can begin to serve the purpose of God.
At this point, we want to talk about this service in just a few of its features. I want to start by saying this: serving the purpose of God can only be done by overcomers standing on resurrection ground.
What is the environment for serving the purpose of God? Overcomers standing on resurrection ground and serving under the Spirit’s unction as to the nearness of His coming.
Those are the three things I am going to talk about as we end our thinking in these matters.
How are we going to serve the purpose of God in our generation if we are not overcoming? If, by His grace, we have not found the blood of Jesus as our protection and provision of forgiveness; if the word of our testimony has not been established, so that what we say is true—Jesus is Lord of my life; and if we are not willing to go through situations that may even threaten our life, at least our self-life, our status, our friendships, and perhaps even our job—if we are not at that place, what then?
Do we think somehow we are going to be able to serve God’s purpose anyway? We are not ready.
Not only that, we might serve in compromised ways because we are trying to avoid denying ourselves, taking up the cross, et cetera. We can get ourselves in a real mess that way.
Here we are, and you want to serve God’s purpose. All right: overcome.
Jesus says, “Come, sit on My throne, and overcome with Me, even as I overcame and sat down at the Father’s throne.” Guess who Jesus said that to? The Laodicean overcomers. That is a pretty bleak bunch.
Boy, what they had to overcome to be alive to the Lord, to be able to repent, follow, and hear what the Lord was saying in that dead church, that dead rich church. Man, they were swimming upstream.
My Lord said, “Come sit on My throne,” because you are overcoming. You are overcoming because you are on resurrection ground. You are not serving out of your own human power, strength, life, and soulish abilities, but you are standing on resurrection ground.
That should be the position of the church whenever we gather together: on resurrection ground. That should be the position of our daily life. But it is something, indeed, we have to fight for to get there.
Then we always talk about the soon coming of the Lord. But if that is not a motivational factor, a timing factor, in our lives, we might find ourselves out of sync with serving the Lord’s purposes.
We had our dear brother Lucio, who shared twice. He is an exegete, you know; he exegeted the Word of God very clearly and wonderfully. Then we had our brother Stephen get up, and he is like an elderly prophet. Here is what he is saying: “The Lord is coming soon. Are you ready?”
Let me put it this way: the Lord is coming soon. Are you ready? Can I sum up? The Lord is coming soon. Are you ready?
Maybe you think that is too much prophecy for one conference, but it might do for us to understand what he is saying. Evidently, he feels some kind of ticking going on in the background. There is an urgency that he senses.
I do not think it just has to do with his age. It is not that all of us, when we get old, say, “Oh, I think the Lord is coming too. I am seventy-five, you know. I still feel pretty young.” I know young people are laughing at that one.
It does not have to do with your age, the weakness of your mind, or slight dementia setting in. It has to do with the spiritual reality you have discovered.
When the Word of God says, “Behold, I am coming quickly,” one day the Holy Spirit opens it up, and you say, “That is the Lord speaking. He is coming quickly.” Then it puts a little fire under our feet, you know, to be faithful to the Lord and to be found faithful as His servants.
Now we are overcoming on resurrection ground with a sense of His soon coming again. With that, we begin to serve His high purpose.
He has high purposes. It says He is going to sum up all things in Christ—things in heaven and things on earth. That means angels are going to be dealt with here and brought under His kingship, His throne. It means that all that is on earth, and even this groaning creation, is going to be straightened out under His power and resurrection authority.
As Paul puts it in Colossians 1:20, He is going to reconcile all things in earth and in heaven to Himself through the blood of the cross. Whoa, that is high stuff.
When we hear Jesus speak in the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke especially—we see that He defines the environment He found as He came and began to preach.
You will remember He preached a shocking message:
The time is fulfilled,
and the kingdom of God is at hand;
repent and believe in the gospel.
Some people were shaken awake, and some people went, “Oh, no, no.” Is that not interesting?
As He shares His stories and speaks about His coming, we see that there are three environmental conditions, only one of which can really serve the purpose of God.
The first environmental condition is the things going on in the world. What is going on in the world? Same old, same old, going around.
He compares it to the days of Noah, when everybody was eating, drinking, and getting married. He compares it to the days of Lot and Sodom. You remember what He said about that? Everybody was buying, selling, planting, and building. It must be the Trump presidency time: buying, selling, planting, building.
What is the environment of the world? Wars, rumours, famines, floods, nations against nations. But this world just turns around, always doing the same old stuff, and it will be doing that stuff when the end comes.
When the door closes on the ark, they will be having a party, and then it will be too late. Jesus warns the world: you can never serve My purpose because you have no heart for the kingdom. You have no care for your life.
Second Peter says there are mockers. These mockers say, “Hey, where is this so-called coming of the kingdom? Everything remains as it always was.” That is it. We are in an eternal circle. We go around and around. We are going nowhere; we are going everywhere.
As the Preacher says in Ecclesiastes, everything is vanity. Humanity is running around, doing everything, going nowhere. That is the first environment. If you are given to that environment, are you going to be able to serve the purpose of God in this generation?
The ultimate judgment is like Babylon. God said through the prophets, “Babylon, I am using you to discipline My children of Judah. You take them into captivity.” Then the prophets said, “Babylon, because you are proud, I am going to have the Medes come and destroy you because of your pride.” Pride goes before a fall.
Sure enough, the last Babylonian king, Belshazzar, had that big feast and used some goblets from the temple. While they were singing, dancing, and doing their stuff, the handwriting came on the wall. They brought in Daniel. Daniel said, “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.” That is the end. Bada bing, bada boom.
That night, Belshazzar was killed and his kingdom was gone. That is what is going to happen to the world: sudden judgment will come and catch them all by surprise. None of them has any sense of eternity in their hearts. They are just living in that casual environment.
Then there is a second environment, what I will call the religious environment. It was the kingdom of Israel. It is churchianity today.
Again, it is business as usual, but hopped up several steps because it is religious. It is even more confusing. Jesus said that among these people there would be false prophets and all kinds of people looking for signs, waiting for an earthly kingdom. Meanwhile, they would carry on with meetings, have their feasts and holy days, look at their beautiful buildings, and give lip service.
They were waiting on God. They were waiting for God to bring a Messiah to take over, destroy Rome, and take over an earthly kingdom.
But despite their religiousness—and, as I say, this is churchianity today—there is no denying of self. There is no taking up of the cross. There is no hallway of tribulation. There is no persecution. In fact, they have made a temporary truce with the world by compromise.
Can you serve the purpose of God when you are like that?
Then there is this third mystery within the kingdom of Israel, which Jesus shared in His parables: the mysteries of the kingdom of God. What is that mystery?
There is this small remnant, a hidden remnant, within that larger religious environment. But these people are faithful. They are nobodies, pretty much: Mary and Joseph, Zechariah and Elizabeth, some prophets, Anna, Simeon. They were priests, they were mothers, they were fishermen. Some were so old they were retired. You know, if you are retired, you are useless.
Just a remnant of people, but they had a few strange characteristics. As it says in the Gospels, they were waiting for the consolation of Israel. They were waiting for the Messiah—a real Messiah, a spiritual Messiah—to come and set Israel back on a true kingdom course.
They were watching. They were praying. They were fellowshipping as a small remnant together. They purposely separated themselves from the world, even though they were mocked for being so religious and so righteous. They were seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
This small little band we call the remnant. That environment the Lord can use. He can work His purpose out of such a people.
The fact of the matter is that all three groups are on the brink of kingdom come. They are on the brink of a change of epoch. They are on the brink of those things being summed up that are going to be summed up. But who can serve the purpose of God in this generation?
It has to be some who have such a heart for the Lord that they repent. When they hear, “The kingdom is at hand,” they repent.
They have faith’s eyes. When they hear of the Messiah, they believe. They deny themselves. They follow this Lord. As Jesus says, they do violence to themselves in order to enter the kingdom. The Lord can use such people to serve His purpose in this generation.
We find this mystery in Ephesians 1:10. We translate it as “the summing up of all things in Christ,” but this Greek word more properly means “heading up,” or “heading up again.”
It implies something. God has an eternal purpose that He has desired from eternity, but now He is in the process of regathering things again. Things have gone this way, but God’s eternal purpose is that things go this way.
There was a fall, was there not? An angelic fall brought this planet into corruption and groaning. Then there was the fall of man. Instead of Adam and Eve being summed up in Christ and drawn in deeper and deeper, they found themselves rebelling, moving apart from Him, and acting independently.
So the whole race of Adam, as our brother Lucio shared, is standing against this gathering up.
In order to serve the purpose of God in this generation, there need to be found some people who are willing to come under the headship of Christ, of their own doing by the grace of God, and then gather up those who are out and bring them in.
When it comes to the enemy, what is our job? To make the enemy a footstool by the Lord. Our brother Stephen says that this is a great deal: God does not deal with the devil Himself; He sends us after him. We make a nice footstool—like snakeskin. We make it out of the devil and give it to the Lord. There you are. You want to serve the purpose of God in our generation? Make a snake footstool.
But more wonderfully, bring people who are alienated and far from God into the kingdom. Gather them up. Sum them up. Help them to be regathered again, standing against those things which were lost.
When we hear that the purpose of God is to sum all things up in Christ, and then read at the end of Ephesians 1 that Christ has been made Head over the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all, we see the church as the first group of those who were out there and have been gathered up to Christ.
When you hear that this is God’s purpose, how does it affect you when you see the church as it presently is? Is it sobering to you? Do you see the lost ground? You see the church as it is today. What is the environment of this church anyway? Is it being gathered up? Where is it at?
I think the church in Laodicea was so worldly and so blind that it thought everything was okay. That is, of all things, most to be pitied.
Perhaps the church feels like Israel. It says, “Okay, well, there is compromise. I know some of our kings are not so good, but anyway, we have got to have a king.” You know how it is.
We see that the church is messed up, but we have no real burden about it. We say, “You know, nothing is perfect anyway. If you start a church and it is perfect, you invite me, and it is suddenly imperfect.” So what do you get? All we have are imperfect things. All we have is compromise. We have people doing things man’s way instead of God’s way. So what can we do? We just have to be the kingdom of Israel. Let us get along as best we can.
Is that our feeling?
Or have you ever seen what God’s purpose is for the church? When you saw what He means for the church, did it break your heart? Has the church ever broken your heart when you look around?
I do not even know what is going on these days. Things are so crazy. There is a show called The Bachelorette. So there are three people who laugh. That is probably because you watch the show. I do not.
But I read in a Christian magazine last week that the bachelorette, whoever she is, eliminates bachelors. Is that the idea? A gaggle of bachelors comes, and they want to—whatever.
She got rid of one of the bachelors, and I guess it was on television, because she asked him, “What would you like to see in a wife?” He said, “I would like my wife, when I marry her, to be a virgin.”
The bachelorette said, “You are rejected. I am saved by the grace of God, and I have sex with whoever I want. God forgives me because He loves me. I am saved by grace. I can do whatever I want. You are out.”
Now, that is, “It is all grace.” Remember I talked about that last night? Go on, do whatever you want. Young people, sleep with each other. Go on, it is all grace.
But you know what? You are affecting your life. Consequences come out of the whole thing. It is not right. It is not right before God. It is not pleasing to Him. That is the truth of the Word of God.
When we do not stand on the truth and make all these kinds of compromises, it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart that so many Christian young people hardly even hear the truth. Would to God that they did.
More importantly, the Lord looks for people who, when they see the church in its present condition, do not complain about the church, how bad it is, and all those other churches out there. What they do is like Nehemiah: they fall down, repent, and say, “Lord, forgive me, because I am part of a church. I am part of this thing that has gone loco.”
It is my sin. It is our sins. We have not challenged, corrected, or held up a standard of holiness, and we have come to this kind of place. “What kind of bride, Lord, can You have out of this? What kind of glory can You get out of such people?”
We read these seven letters to the churches in Revelation. It is old stuff; we have read it so much. Can you imagine the first time someone read the letter, when they had not heard it before? He says, “Now listen: you left your first love. I want you to go and remember how far you have fallen.”
They began to think of it, repent, and do the first works. I believe the Ephesian church probably repented because they remembered the way they used to be and saw the way they were then.
You can close your eyes or stick your head in the sand, or you can see it and say, “God, have mercy upon us.”
Strangely to say, those who repent—those who see God’s purpose and see that it is not being fulfilled in our midst—become a testimony of overcomers who are willing to repent, remember from where they have fallen, and do the first works.
They do all the other things that these overcomers are asked to do in the book of Revelation. This is not baby games. This is swimming against the tide.
Overcomers. Why? Because we see God’s heart is broken that His Son’s bride is in such a condition. These are the kinds of people the Lord can use to serve the purpose of God in this generation.
There is spiritual warfare. We can overcome by the life of Christ and have a glorious church, but spiritual warfare is involved. I do not really know if that many Christians believe there is a war going on.
The enemy does things pretty sneakily. Sometimes, before we know it, he has undone us. But there is a war going on right now.
Turn to Psalm 2, because let us use David once again as an example of somebody serving the purpose of God in his generation. Let us see how clearly he understands that he is in a spiritual battle.
Psalm 2:1–6:
Why are the nations in an uproar,
and the peoples devising a vain thing?
The kings of the earth take their stand,
and the rulers take counsel together
against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying,
“Let us tear their fetters apart
and cast away their cords from us!”
He who sits in the heavens laughs,
the Lord scoffs at them.
Then He will speak to them in His anger
and terrify them in His fury, saying,
“But as for Me, I have installed My King
upon Zion, My holy mountain.”
Here is David. He is a king in Israel, and he has conflicts. The Edomites come and attack them, this group over here, that country, and the Philistines come and attack. He has to fight them. Warfare is going on.
But he realizes it is more than just human warfare, more than kingdoms against kingdoms. This is the Lord’s kingdom. Because of that, these nations are conspiring together. They are angry. They are losing their peace. They are devising all kinds of plans that do not work. They have gathered together and taken counsel, saying, “How can we bring down this kingdom? The one thing we cannot stand is this kingdom.”
They are not going after Egypt, Babylon, or Assyria. Those are big kingdoms. They are going after this little dinky kingdom because, I think, they do not even realize that the Lord is behind the kingdom. They hate the Lord, and they hate the Lord’s Anointed—Messiah is the name here, His Anointed.
The world is unreasonably attacking David and his kingdom. But because David has been through the mill and has begun to see things from a heavenly perspective, he realizes, “Hey, this warfare going on here is spiritual warfare. It is not just political warfare.”
This is a basic principle behind so much that we encounter. We have fights and skirmishes all the time—businesses with businesses, jobs with jobs, one boss with another, and all these kinds of things. Especially Christians seem to get an especially tough time.
We think, “Ah, I do not know. It is just the way it is.” Oh, no, it is not. It is because someone has set himself against you because you are the Lord’s.
Jesus said to His disciples just before He left for Calvary, “Just remember this: they hate you because they hate Me.” You are going to get some rough treatment. Do not think you will get a square deal. By the way, is life fair? Whoever made up that thing, “Life is fair”? Oh, no, it is not. If you are a Christian, you get the double dose.
There are innuendos and conspiracies against you. “You know what? I just do not like her. She reads her Bible for lunch.” I mean, how can you fight that?
But you are in spiritual warfare, and your fellowship is in spiritual warfare. You are in a warfare in which you might be dispersed by the enemy who is conspiring against you. We have to learn how to do spiritual warfare in order to stand as a testimony for the Lord and serve His purpose.
He is looking for groups of His people who will stand in the unity of the Spirit under the real headship of the Lord Jesus, and worship, witness, fellowship, study the Bible, and pray. That is it. Such a simple thing.
He is not looking for big buildings, big financial budgets, or whatever. So simple. Boy, the enemy hates it. The simpler you are, the more the enemy hates it. The more complicated you get, the enemy leaves you alone because the complications get complicated. But if you remain simple—oh, boy.
David knew not only that there was spiritual warfare, but that the heavens were invested in this battle on the earth. “He who sits in the heavens laughs.” God is looking down on those conspiring against His people. He laughs. He holds them in derision. He waits for them to try a plan, and then He short-circuits the plan.
“This is My Anointed. This is My throne. This is My hill.” It is a spiritual battle, and David saw that the Lord was the victory in this whole matter.
Christians sound surprised sometimes when they experience trouble like that. Remember how Peter said in 1 Peter 4:12:
Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you,
which comes upon you for your testing,
as though some strange thing were happening to you.
There is nothing strange about it.
If you want to just exist peacefully, go hide somewhere, and you still will not be peaceful. The only way into peace is the shalom of the Messiah, as you stand in Christ and see the victory.
How about those dear Hebrew Christians, as Rome was coming to destroy the city and remove the whole old covenant—the buildings, the sacrifices, the whole thing? What did the Lord tell those people?
“Trust Me. Trust Me fully. I am all you need. Trust My blood. Rest in the full assurance that I am your Apostle and High Priest, and I will lead you. Keep meeting together. Show brotherly love. Show hospitality. Keep your marriages holy and undefiled. That is all I am asking.”
Stand still. Be My people. The enemy will be defeated.
If we are going to see the spiritual battle, I want us to see that there is a heavenly dimension. Every time we go through this kind of battle, we are touching Revelation 12:
They overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb
and because of the word of their testimony.
Every time something comes up, it has to do with something much higher. Whenever we touch the spiritual battle, we are touching Ephesians 6, because our battle is in the heavenlies.
If we take it as, “If we can just get rid of Joe, Myrtle, and Charlie, we will be okay,” and fight at the level of earth, we are not going to get anywhere. No, there are spiritual principles and forces in the heavenlies standing against us. We have to understand the basis of that battle.
John, the apostle of the overcomer, the apostle for recovery, says there are three ways that, if you stand in them, you will overcome. I am not going to talk about all the armour. Here are the three things.
The first weapon of the Lord that He gives to us who want to serve the purpose of God in our generation is this: His life overcomes the world. Zoe overcomes psuche. Eternal zoe overcomes the world.
Whatever is born of God overcomes the world;
and this is the victory that overcomes the world—our faith.
Who is the one who overcomes the world,
but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
Our victory is because we are standing on resurrection ground in the life of the Lord Jesus. John would say, strangely, “You want to fight and win your victory? Then abide in the Lord’s life and stand still.”
Remember how Paul says three times about the spiritual battle in Ephesians 6: “Stand firm, stand firm, stand firm.” You stand in that life, and everything collapses around you. That is the first winning tool.
The second overcoming provision we have been given is called by John, in 1 John 2, the anointing within, which we call the Holy Spirit.
Here is the problem: because we are soulish people, we do not realize that this battle is primarily spiritual. The enemy is trying to defile our spirit. If he can get to your spirit, your soul and body are nothing.
He is fighting you on spiritual ground. If you do not understand the spiritual ground, he is going to deceive you in some way. But if you live by that anointing, you overcome.
Listen to the context. First John 4 speaks about the spirit of truth and the spirit of error:
By this you know the Spirit of God:
every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God;
and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.
This is the spirit of the antichrist,
of which you have heard that it is coming,
and now it is already in the world.
You are from God, little children, and have overcome them;
because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.
What does “overcome them” mean? He is talking about those spirits that want to bring error into your life, come in, and defile the truth. You have overcome because He lives in you.
Here He is talking about the abiding Holy Spirit. What is our second basis for victory? We abide, and the Holy Spirit abides in us. He is our anointing. He helps us when error comes slipping in.
In many assemblies, error slips in, and we may be awake in soul and body, but our spirit is not sensitive. Yet we have an anointing. By this anointing, we can understand when spirits of error attack. We overcome by the One who abides in us.
This is life and death. Many assemblies end up going aside because they lose their spirit. They become a soulish assembly.
The third thing that is overcoming, and cannot be beaten, is love. Paul puts it this way in Romans 8:35–37:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine,
or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
As it is written,
“For Your sake we are being put to death all day long;
we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer
through Him who loved us.
It is not as though you are going to have an easy time in the world. We are going to be persecuted and knocked around, and these things are going to come to us. But His love is our victory.
The enemy can try to bring us into distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword, but he cannot take away the love of God. That is the victory: for you to be able to say, going through difficult times, “Jesus loves me, this I know.” You just want to bow.
Those three things I leave for you to think about: His life, His light, His love. If you have those three realities of God in you, you have overcoming life to fight against all these battles of the enemy.
Now I want to touch on the last environmental key I mentioned earlier. If we are going to serve the purpose of God in this generation, we have to know what time it is. Just pure and simple.
I love this translation—I think it is the King James Version. When it talks about the great eternal purpose of God, it says:
That in the dispensation of the fullness of times
He might gather together in one all things in Christ,
both which are in heaven,
and which are on earth.
This word oikonomia, used in the Greek here, has a lot of meaning. My translation says “administration.” I think Chinese translations say “arrangements.” It is a little hard to translate.
But I like this particular translation: “the dispensation of the fullness of times,” because there is something in this word that has to do with timing. It means God’s eternal purpose is being worked out in dispensations and timings. He does certain things at certain times.
It behoves us to be aware of what the Spirit is saying to us as to what time it is. Is it time to harvest? Is it time to plant? Is it time to repent? Is it time to rejoice? What time is it?
Throughout the history of God’s people, you see different dispensations, where God kept His people through law, conscience, and all of these kinds of ways.
But in New Testament time, what time are we in? What timeline? Are we in the time of building the church? Or have we come to the time when the church needs to be recovered? Or is it a time when we all need to overcome by the life within us? What time is it?
If we do not know what time it is, then we will always do things out of sync. We will be trying to have a revival when God is trying to bring us to our knees.
Sometimes we have a terrible sense of time. My proof is that every assembly I know that meets here has somebody who asks for a song always at the wrong time. Right? The singing is just on that plane, and then they come over here—whoop—and there we go.
But that is just a little problem. We are talking about timing: seeing things in God’s time.
When Jesus came and said, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand,” those who heard knew, “This is the time to repent.” It was not time to argue with Him: “What do You mean? What are You talking about? What is the kingdom of God?” He said, “Repent,” and you can sense it: this is the season of repentance.
Jesus speaks so many parables in the Gospels, and so many have to do with timing, do they not? “Ah, but you came too late.” You did something, but was that what God wanted? You were not approved.
“Why did we not prophesy in Your name, do miracles, and serve You?” The Lord said, “No, I do not even know you, because you have not been on My schedule. You are just doing what you want in your own time.”
Do you understand? There is an awareness of God’s timing.
Of course, the primary example comes up every year. Last year our subject was Issachar. What did they know? The times. Actually, what did Issachar know? They knew, “My time is up.”
Issachar knew it was time to bring the twelve tribes together, who had remained separated, to join together under David. They sensed, “This is the time. We have got to do it.” They talked to all the tribes, brought them together, and David became king over all Israel.
Knowing God’s time: what is He up to? What is He doing right now?
Jesus spoke many parables about this, but for two thousand years we have heard His words: “I am coming soon. Watch and pray. You do not know the hour. I tell you again: watch. Beware.” After two thousand years, most of us are saying, “Ah, He is not really coming tomorrow.”
Without a vision, the people cast off restraint. When we are doing something in sync with God’s doing, there is power, rightness, fruitfulness, and effect. It is so important to be in sync.
But if we are serving God without any awareness that He is coming soon, it is hard to keep things in sync.
When dear John was called upon to write his Revelation, we read these verses in Revelation 1:
Behold, He is coming with the clouds,
and every eye will see Him,
even those who pierced Him;
and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him.
So it is to be. Amen.
I am the Alpha and the Omega.
“I have the beginning and the end in My hands, and you need to come to Me if you want to serve the purpose of God in your generation.”
With many other entreaties, He tells us that He is coming soon. The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” He testifies, “Surely I come quickly,” and we say, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”
Is that really a time-sensitive cry, or is that just a song we like to sing?
The key is this: in our spiritual battle and in our serving God’s purpose in our generation, it takes an awareness of what God is doing, what dispensation this is, and what His timing is.
Was it not wonderful in those stories about David, when the Philistines came? He went to the Lord and said, “Should I attack them now?” The Lord said, “Yes, attack them now.” The second time, David asked, “Should I attack them now?” The Lord said, “No, no, no. This time, wait until you hear their footsteps in the trees. Then it is time.”
Some of our spiritual warfare is well intentioned, but off sync with what the Lord is doing. The Lord has a timing.
Oh, blessed is the child who knows what time it is. That is the kingdom: being sensitive to the time.
The people around Jesus, as He spoke about the time, mostly had no idea what He was talking about. All those Jews in Israel, with all their talk of the kingdom, had no idea of the spiritual kingdom He was talking about. They were glued to earthly things.
Brothers and sisters, I know you are here because you want to pursue God’s eternal purpose. Because of that, He has taken you by faith, and He has taken you through the hallway of tribulation to bring you into glory.
Even as you are going through these various things, He has purpose for you. He has a calling in His calling for us to be part of. He wants us to be joined with Him, in sync with His timing and in sync with His dispensation, that we might do the things that are profitable.
The Lord wants us, right near the end, to be doing all things for the glory of God. May the Lord help us.
Well, Lord, we always say it: we do not know if there will be another conference. We do not know when You are coming back. But we want to be found time-sensitive in our actions and wise in our struggle.
Oh, we pray, Lord, that You would teach us how to walk in overcoming life on resurrection ground. We have tried a lot of things in our own strength that did not work so well. Sometimes we tried to serve God when we had not overcome in our own lives—sin, the world, the flesh, the devil—and it did not work out so well.
So we thank You, Lord, for all You have taken us through. Thank You, Lord, for the troubles we have had. Thank You, Lord, for the dealings.
Give us a heart to repent whenever we see that we are astray from Your highest plan. Let others compromise and settle in whatever way they want. Lord, raise up a people who, without compromise, want all that You want.
We know there is nothing perfect upon this earth, but Lord, we want to move in that direction. If You help us, Lord, we will be serving You when You come back. By Your grace and mercy, we thank You that we can share these times together. In Jesus’ precious name. Amen.