Thirty-Sixth Meeting
(March 5,1964 P.M.)
I am
going to continue this evening where we left off last
night. We will read again the first five verses of the
First Letter of John:
"That
which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which
we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon,
and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (for the
life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear
witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was
with the Father, and was manifested unto us,) that which
we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also
may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is
with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these
things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. This
then is the message which we have heard of Him, and
declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no
darkness at all."
Now as
we broke off before we had finished this particular word,
we must just look back a little in order to get the
connection. You will remember that we said that John
wrote his Gospel, his three Letters and the Revelation at
a time when everything was in confusion; especially was
that true in relation to believers. Believers were
turning aside to something either different from Christ
or less than Christ. They were becoming occupied with
certain interpretations of Christian truth, and so there
were separate groups of believers all circling round some
particular aspect of truth. And these various aspects of
truth divided the Lord's people, so that certainty had
almost disappeared. Many of the Lord's people did not
know just where they were. They were full of doubts and
questions, and the testimony of Jesus was losing its
power because of these divisions.
So John
wrote because of that situation, and his Gospel and his
Letters are his answer to that situation. John's great
purpose was to bring the Lord's people back to certainty.
So over against all the questions John said in this First
Letter thirteen times, "We know," by
which he meant there is a ground of absolute assurance
for the Lord's people. Then as we mentioned last night,
ten times he said, "This is." Ten things
he said, "This is" the foundation. This is the
ground of assurance.
Now we
take it up there this evening, and we include all that
John has to say in one thing. The Lord's people had gone
off in all different directions on some teaching. So they
were divided by many teachings. You will see that John
employed one solution to the whole problem, and John said
that this solution is a sure and certain one. Sometimes
you will see an advertisement for a certain medicine, and
the advertiser will tell you that this medicine will cure
all troubles. You can suffer from any malady, but this
will cure it. Of course, nobody believes that, WE are
very suspicious about advertisements of that kind. But
John is right. He says, I have got the cure for all your
troubles; and he says it with great emphasis. He says,
'That which we have seen, and heard and handled, that
which was from the beginning, this is the cure for all
Christian troubles.' John has no doubt about it, because
he himself had proved it. John had lived a long life. He
was older than anybody in this gathering tonight when he
wrote this. He was the last of the apostles. Paul spoke
of himself as "Paul the aged" (Philemon 9). But
John was much older than Paul. He had lived a long life.
He had seen many troubles. He had met many difficulties
amongst the Lord's people. He knew about all those
conditions of which he wrote in the first, second and
third chapters of the Revelation. He himself had suffered
great persecution for Christ's sake. But after all, John
says, 'We know." - And this is the solution to all
our troubles.
We ought
to be prepared to listen to a man like that. We ought to
say at once, 'Well then, John, what is the solution? We
have a lot of trouble. The Lord's people are divided.
Many groups of the Lord's people are even fighting
against each other. There are many contrary teachings.
John, you say that you have got the solution, what is
it?' Well, come again to this letter and he gives it to
us. It is very simple in words. It may not be so simple
in practice. But what John says in effect is this: You
come right back to the Lord Jesus Himself. Leave all
those things which are just things in themselves, all
those things which are occupying your time and your
energy, all those things which are causing so much
trouble to you, all those things which make you ask
questions as to whether we are right or whether we are
wrong. Are we right or are the other people right? Are we
wrong or are they wrong? All such questions, just leave
them, and come back to Christ Himself. John seeks to
bring the Lord's people right back to the Lord Jesus
Himself. That is, he seeks to show them what came in with
the Lord Jesus.
What was
it that was bound up with the Person of the Lord Jesus
when He came into this world? What is it that comes
wherever the Lord Jesus comes? What is the effect of
Jesus coming into touch with any person or any situation?
Because everything is bound up with the Lord Jesus
Himself personally, and the test of the Presence of the
Lord Jesus is the effect that He has. The Presence of the
Lord Jesus always does have some effect. The Lord Jesus
can never come anywhere without something happening. That
is the difference between the Presence of the Lord and
teaching about the Lord. You may have all the teaching
about Christ, and you may have some special teaching
about Christ, and it may have no result whatever. There
may be no effect. It is just some teaching. It may be
some teaching on the Church. It may be some teaching on
the local churches. It may be the teaching of holiness.
Oh! there are a thousand different teachings connected
with Christ. You may have one of them or you may have the
whole thousand, and it had no effect in your life, and it
may make no difference amongst you as a company of the
Lord's people.
If the
teaching has any effect at all, it makes you tired of
teaching. Sooner or later you come to the place where you
say, 'Oh, we have heard that all before. There is nothing
new about that. We know it all.' And you are not very
interested to hear any more of it. Perhaps you would say,
'Well, give us something new.' Then the new thing gets
old. You would say, 'Give us something new again.' You
are wearing out everything, until you get to such a place
that you cannot take any more. And that is the effect of
teaching. It does not transform the life. It does not
make a difference in the situation. That means that you
have separated the teaching about Christ from the
Presence of Christ Himself. THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD
ALWAYS MAKES A DIFFERENCE.
We saw
last night that wherever Jesus went, something happened.
Now have you noticed the difference between John's Gospel
and John's Letter? At the end of the Gospel by John, John
sums up the whole of that Gospel in one statement. John
says, 'Many other signs did Jesus, if they were all
written, I suppose the world would not contain the books;
but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is
the Christ, the Son of God, and believing, you may have
life in His name' (John 21:25). So, the whole of John's
Gospel is gathered into this, that you may believe.
That is
very good, but look how John sums up his Letter. He sums
up his Letter in another way: "That you may know
that you have eternal life" (1 John 5:13). The
Gospel is, that you may believe and believing you may
have eternal life. The Letter is saying, "That
you may know that you have eternal life." And
John says: What is true in Him in the Gospel, is to
be true in you, in the Letter. He says, What I have said
about the Lord Jesus in the Gospel has got to be true in
you - true in Him and true in you.
Now in
the Gospel, John told us of what Jesus said about the day
when the Holy Spirit would come. He said, "If I go
away, I will send the Comforter. He will abide with you
forever, and He will be in you." These people to
whom John wrote his letter were living in the day when
that was fulfilled. The Holy Spirit has actually come,
John fourteen has been fulfilled. The Spirit has come.
You are living in the day of the Spirit. And the Spirit
is supposed to be in you. What was true of Christ, must
be true of you, and it can be true of you. The truth as
it is in Jesus has got to be the same in us.
I think
we need to recapture the realization of the day in which
we are living. John the Baptist came preaching, "The
Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Jesus came
preaching, "The Kingdom of Heaven is at
hand." And everybody was looking forward to the
day when the Kingdom would come. They were waiting for
the Kingdom to come. Are you waiting for the Kingdom to
come? Are you still looking forward to a day when the
Kingdom will come? The Kingdom has come. The Kingdom is
here now. If you are born again, you are in the Kingdom.
We are living in the day when the Kingdom is here. It was
fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. We are not looking for
the Kingdom to come. We are only looking for the Kingdom
to be consummated. But it is here now, and that ought to
mean something to us.
While
all the prophets prophesied to the day in which we live,
John the Baptist, the last of the Old Testament prophets,
also prophesied toward this day. Jesus said that day is
coming; but He said, there are some standing here who
shall not see that until they see the Kingdom - and that
was fulfilled. The day of Pentecost, the Kingdom came;
and that Kingdom has never yet been taken away. We are
living in the day toward which all the prophets
prophesied. What a wonderful day we must be living in.
The Kingdom came in with Jesus Christ. You cannot have a
Kingdom without a King. If Jesus is King, you have got
the Kingdom.
Now what
did come in with Him, that is, what is the nature of this
Kingdom? We come back to where we were last night. We saw
that the first thing that comes in with Jesus Christ is
Light. He brought in this Light from heaven. He said,
"I am the Light of the world, He that followeth Me
shall not walk in darkness." So John says here, THIS
IS THE MESSAGE, THAT GOD IS LIGHT, AND IN HIM IS NO
DARKNESS AT ALL. Then immediately John points to Jesus
Christ. And through his Gospel and through his Letters,
he says, This is the Light of God come in the Person of
His Son, Jesus Christ.
We
referred to three effects of the light. It makes people
able to say, "Whereas I was blind, now I see"
(John 9:25). I was blind. You remember the
man who said that? He was a man who was born blind. He
never had seen. He did not know in his own experience
what anything looked like. Any knowledge that he had, he
received from other people. He could never say, "I
see." He was born blind. He never did see. When
Jesus touched him and gave him sight, he was able to say,
"I was blind, but now I see."
Now I
want you to note that there is a principle there. Perhaps
there is no one in this gathering, I hope there is no
one, who is physically blind. Perhaps everybody here
tonight has their natural sight. If I came to any one of
you and said, "Look here, you are blind. You cannot
see anything." What would you say? "Well, you
are not speaking the truth. I know I can see. I can see
you. I can see the other people. I can see all that is
here." Well, that is all right naturally.
But the
fact is this, it is not until Jesus touches you and me
that we really do see. Not until we get a personal touch
of the Lord Jesus upon our lives, do we realize that we
have been blind. Not until we get that touch of the Lord
Jesus are we really able to say, "I was blind, I
thought I could see, I imagined I could see, I believed I
could see, but now I know I was quite blind. The way in
which I now see, I never could see before." That is
the effect of a living touch with the Lord Jesus. Of
course, all the people of this world will not believe you
if you tell them they are blind. They think you are mad.
But let them get a touch of the Lord Jesus, and the first
thing they will say, "I can see now, and therefore I
must have been blind before."
That is
the effect of Jesus, that is not the teaching of Jesus.
You see, the teaching does not always open people's eyes.
The teaching may be very useful and very important, but
if the Spirit of Jesus does not touch our spiritual eyes,
we are still blind.
Now I
must go back over something that we said last night. The
three things that came to light when Jesus came into the
situation. First of all, His Presence revealed the true
nature of the human heart. At once, people began to show
their true natures when Jesus came into the situation.
And it is very interesting and significant to note that
this started at the highest level. Here is Nicodemus.
Jesus said to Nicodemus, "Art thou the teacher in
Israel?" He did not say, "Art thou a teacher in
Israel," but "Art thou the teacher in
Israel?" Which put Nicodemus very high up in the
saddle. Here is a man of great intelligence and natural
enlightenment. There was nothing that Nicodemus could not
talk about in the realm of religion. He was a Pharisee.
That means he represented the top level of people in
Israel.
If you
had met Nicodemus before he met Jesus, he would have told
you quite frankly that he knew everything. He had been to
college. He had sat under the greatest teachers. He was a
man of great education, he himself occupied a very high
place in the academic world. If you had then said to
Nicodemus, "Nicodemus, it will not be very long
before you will be saying that you do not understand
anything at all." Nicodemus would have said,
"That is quite impossible. I do understand. The day
will never come when I will have to say that I do not
know." Very well then, let us see what happens.
Nicodemus
comes to Jesus by night. He comes into the Presence of
the One Who is the Light - and Jesus begins to speak to
him. And it is not long before Nicodemus is saying,
"How can these things be? I do not understand what
You are talking about. I do not understand what You
mean?" He is constantly saying, "Oh, how?"
One great big question! Jesus says to him, "Art thou
the teacher in Israel, and understandest not these
things?" This great scholar is a poor little
ignoramus. He has come into the Presence of the Light,
and he has discovered his own darkness.
But look
at all these other Pharisees, they are like Nicodemus,
educated men, proud religious men; when Jesus came among
them, it stirred up in them all their hatred for Jesus,
and they will seek by enemies to put Jesus to death. Why
is that? Because Jesus is bringing to light their true
nature. He is making them feel how bad they are with all
their religion. And Jesus says, "This is the
condemnation. The Light has come, but men love darkness
rather than light, because their deeds are evil." So
the first effect of the Light is to show up the evil in
our own hearts, and to make us feel what poor creatures
we are, after all. The Light brings conviction of sin.
There is no hope of salvation without the Light that
brings conviction of sin.
What is
true of the beginning of salvation is true of the whole
course of salvation. If the Lord Jesus is really with us,
we ought always to be aware of how sinful we are in
ourselves. Let me put that in another way. If the Lord
Jesus is with us, the one thing about us will be - oh,
our greatest need is the grace of God. That will be the
greatest word in our vocabulary. Grace, Grace, marvelous
Grace! You do not understand the meaning of Grace
unless you know your own heart. The deepest note in
Christian worship is the note of thanks for the grace of
God. That is the first effect of Jesus coming into touch
with us as the Light.
Then I
remind you of the Life of Jesus as He went up and down
the country. Everywhere that Jesus went, He found
trouble. He found sickness of every kind - the blind, and
the deaf, and the dumb, the lepers and the palsy, they
were everywhere. But Jesus put His finger upon the cause
of all this. One day, the scribes and the Pharisees were
gathered together, and there came in a man who was sick
of the palsy, and it says, "And they watched Him to
see what He would do because it was the Sabbath
Day." Jesus looked at this poor man. He had
compassion upon him, and He said to him, "Son,
thy sins be forgiven thee." The scribes and the
Pharisees said, "Who is this that forgives sins,
only God can forgive sin." Jesus said unto them, "Whether
is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, 'Thy sins
be forgiven thee'; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed,
and walk?"' Of course, they did not answer that
one. So Jesus said, "But that ye may know that
the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins,"
(He saith to the sick of the palsy) "I say unto
thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into
thine house." And the man arose, and went to his
house.
You see
the point? This man is an example. He represents all the
sick. And Jesus says about all the sicknesses, that
behind all these conditions, the thing that is
responsible is sin. If sin had never come into the world,
none of these things would have come in. All the
suffering and the misery in this world can be traced back
to sin. Adam let sin into the human race, and with sin
came all human suffering. When all sin has been removed
from believers in the end, there will be no more
suffering. The time is coming, as it is written in the
Revelation, when there shall be no more sorrow, no more
tears, no more pain. God shall wipe away all tears from
all faces. That is how it is going to be. A little girl
heard that read, God shall wipe away all tears from all
faces, and she turned to her mother and said, 'God must
have a very big handkerchief.' Well, of course, that is
how a little child will think of it. How does God wipe
away all tears? Not by taking a literal handkerchief, but
by removing the cause of tears. And the cause of all
tears is sin.
So that
when Jesus came into this world, all these conditions
were shown to be something wrong. The Light made it
manifest that all this is wrong. And Jesus had come to
remove the cause of all this. And He bore our sin in His
Own body on the tree.
Then the
third thing that the Light revealed. It went back behind
the suffering, it went back behind the sin, and it went
right back to the cause of the sin and the suffering, and
He showed that all this was the work of the devil. In the
First Letter of John, he actually uses this phrase,
referring to the darkness, referring to the divisions,
referring to all the confusions, he says, "The works
of the devil." "And the Son of God
was manifested to destroy the works of the devil." So,
confusion is a work of the devil. Division amongst
the Lord's people is a work of the devil. Make no mistake
about it, the devil is behind that sort of thing.
What is
it that the devil is wanting to do all the time? He is
wanting to bring dishonor upon the Name of the Lord.
Division brings dishonor upon the Lord, confusion amongst
the Lord's people brings dishonor upon the Lord,
teachings that divide the Lord's people bring dishonor
upon the Lord. And that is the supreme work of Satan - to
bring dishonor upon the Name of the Lord. So that when
Jesus came and met all these conditions, and knew that
Satan was behind them, that Satan was the cause of them,
it was His jealousy for the honor of His Father that
calls Him to deal with these situations. Jesus, as the
Light, brings to light the works of the devil in order
that He may destroy them.
Now John
says, "If we walk in the Light, as He is
in the Light, we have fellowship one with another." The
cure of those difficulties is to come into the Light, and
to walk in the Light. Dear friends, if you and I are
walking in the Light, we shall hate every work of Satan.
We shall turn violently against anything that brings
dishonor on the Name of our Lord. So, Light is power,
Light does something in us, Light sets up a reaction to
darkness. The Light is good, and therefore, the Light
sets up a reaction against all that is evil and bad. So
it will be if the Lord is in us, because HE IS THE LIGHT.
You see,
I want to put the emphasis on this, that light is not
just some abstract thing. You can call it by the other
name, if you like, Truth. Truth is not just some abstract
thing. Truth is not just a theory. Truth, like Light, is
power. It has an effect, And we can test our idea of
light by this - what is it doing? How is it reacting to
the works of the devil? I am afraid that quite a lot of
the Lord's dear people are encouraging the devil rather
than discouraging him. They are making divisions. And the
devil is rubbing his hands, very pleased. He says, that
will bring dishonor on God. Do not help the devil. Do not
help him in any of his work. Walk in the Light, and react
against all the works of darkness. And still, we have not
finished this matter, but we have got two more evenings,
if the Lord wills.
Now may
the Lord make all this talking more than words. We are
going away with a lot more words. Ideas, which may be new
or they may not be new to you, if it just remains there,
we have come here tonight in vain. It would have been
better if we never came; because we are only going to be
responsible for what we hear. But do lay up these words
in your hearts, and just tell yourself that the Presence
of Jesus Christ in my life is going to have real effect.
Jesus cannot be Present without something happening. And
if He is Present all the time, something ought to be
happening all the time. May He make it like that for
His Own glory. Amen.