We
remember, oh Lord, that it is written: "He spake, and it was
done; He commanded,
and it stood fast." By the Word of the Lord were the heavens,
the earth,
created. Our prayer, Lord, is that Thou would speak acts; that
Thy Word may be
Thine act. Not just words, Lord, but words of power - Divine
fiat by the Word;
something done. Make it like that, even now, in the Name of
the Lord Jesus,
amen.
The matter that the Lord has laid on my heart for these morning
first sessions
is that of what has come to us, and what we have come to, by the
coming of the
Lord Jesus.
For this present hour, I just want to lay down two
fragments of
Scripture around which we shall move at present. The first is in
the Old
Testament in the First Book of the Chronicles, chapter 12 at
verse 32: "And
of the children of Issachar, men that had understanding of the
times, to know
what Israel ought to do."
The
other is in the New Testament in the Letter to the Hebrews,
chapter one and
verse one and two: "God, having of old time spoken unto the
fathers in the
prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the
end of these
days spoken unto us in His Son."
Knowledge
of the times... at the end of these times... has spoken in His
Son... or as you
see: "in Son", Sonwise. And these scriptures and their
context, you will
notice, are in a time of crisis and change; very big crises,
very significant
change. In the Letter to the Hebrews, the reference to the end
of certain times
and the introduction of other times represents a tremendous
crisis; what Dr.
Campbell Morgan called, "The Crisis of the Christ." I'm sorry he
stole that
wonderful way of putting it, I'd liked to have been the
originator of it! But that
is what it is that is before us: the crisis of the Christ, which
is, of course,
the crisis of the dispensations.
And then the Hebrew Letter brings us to the crisis of our own
time. Not only
the great general movement from one regime to another, but the
specific
application of that movement to our own time. And as in the
setting of the
passage in Chronicles, so in this Letter to the Hebrews, the
important thing is
not just to know of a change of times, of regime, of Divine
economy, but to
have understanding of what it is; what the change is. We shall
see, I think, it
is of immense consequence not only to know that there are
different
dispensations, different economies in the Divine sovereignty,
but for the
Lord's people to know the nature of the times in which they
live.
I
venture to suggest to you, that perhaps the most important
thing just now, is
for the people of God to know the nature of the time in which
they live, so far
as God is concerned... tremendous amount of confusion...
complications are immense
and far-reaching just now in Christianity. Many, many people
don't know just where
they are; what is right, and what is not right; what is the
truth, and what is
not the truth, and so on and on. And, I repeat, the important
thing, the
supremely important thing, is to have knowledge: "understanding
of
the
times, to know what Israel ought to do now" now - what we
ought to do now,
what Christians ought to do now, because of the peculiar and
particular nature
of what God is doing now. I think you will agree with me that is
very vital.
Now, in the Scriptures, throughout the Bible, of course we do
have many crises,
many movements through a crisis from one state, position, order,
to another. I
am not going to even mention them, but you know that so it is,
the Bible is
marked throughout by reaching a point from which everything
takes a new
complexion, represents a new phase of the movement: the going of
God. The Bible
is just full of that sort of thing, God moving, moving by
stages, and every
stage marked by some crisis. When we use the word 'crisis',
we mean we
are brought face to face with something of tremendous
significance which is
going to govern the whole future and make all the difference in
the future.
Now from the Divine side, these crises are onward movements:
they are God
moving on. From the human side, they are God moving back,
because things have
deviated on the human side. Things have gone off the direct line
of God and
other things have come in which God never fully intended, if He
intended them
at all. They were not in His original pattern; there has been
deviation, so
that a crisis arises which has this two-fold meaning: God is
going on, but in
order to go on, He must bring back. He must take His people back
to the point
from which they departed. That is exactly where we are. God is
going on, He is
not giving up, He is not defeated, He is not having to revise
His program: He
is going on. But from the standpoint or side of His people, He
is having to
pull them back and say: "Look here, you have gone off the line,
you have moved
away from My intention. You have deviated, you must come back to
the point, and
pick things up again with Me. I am going on; if you want to go on, you must come back and rejoin Me at the point where you deviated."
I think that is perfectly clear that the two aspects of any
crisis are always
those; and the crisis is therefore, one perhaps, and very often,
of leaving an
entire regime (what I have called economy, order, development)
leaving it in
its entirety, leaving it behind and moving with God in a new entirety, on new
ground to what is wholly and originally, exactly, according to
His Mind. These
are things involved in these crises. This is the method of God.
I
believe that the Lord wants to show us this week something of
the present
crisis in Christianity, and if that's too big a word... if it seems
too
objective; then the present
crisis in your life and in mine in relation to His original
thought and His full
thought.
Now
we have to put in there this: man never really learns anything
theoretically.
You
are not going to learn anything by volumes poured out upon you
in words from
this desk this week. That sounds pretty hopeless, doesn't it
then? "Why come
here, why do you men talk to us?" No, you are not really going
to learn
anything by all this: I say, really
learn. Man never really learns anything... only by experience.
Take that in,
underscore it. God knows that, and that is why God is so
practical. That is why
God will take years and years, centuries; three or four thousand
years. He's governed
by this thing: that men don't learn by what they are told, they
only learn by
experience. That is, they have got to have a history with God,
under the hand
of God, before they learn anything.
Do you think you know something? How do you know it? How have
you come to know
it? By attending conferences? No, no, there can be a terrible
tragedy along
that line. I know definitely of people who have had the fullest
teaching for
many years: 20, 30, 40 years... you could hardly have more than
they have had,
and at the end they have jettisoned the whole thing; washed
their hands of it. They
know it all! They said, "We know it all. We know all that. You
cannot tell us
anymore than we know!" Alright, alright. So you may come here
year after year
and think you know. Well, how do you know?
God
knows that we really know nothing
only by history, by experience. This sounds very elementary and
simple, I know,
but we have got to get down to this. You see, we are coming to
this point of spiritual
understanding of the times,
our time, and knowing "what Israel ought to do."
Now I ought to put an hour in just there, in brackets and in
parenthesis, on
two Greek words in the New Testament. I took the trouble to go
through the New
Testament with these two Greek words and I, myself, got a
surprise, after a
good many years of studying the New Testament, to find that I
got sheets of
paper full of references, and the whole thing was divided into
two columns, on
two words, both of which are translated into the English word
"know." And
they're two entirely different words
in two entirely different realms. One whole column is the word
which means
"knowing information." Information. You know it, because you
have been told.
You've heard it, you've read it, and so you know that way. It's
another Greek word
entirely, which is the
word which means you have a personal experience of that thing,
and you know it
because it has done something in you
and become a part of
you. It's your
history; it's your experience. It's your life - it's you!
The New Testament can be divided by those two Greek words. I'm
not quoting
Greek, I'm just telling you what's there. There they are. "Know"
-
"This is life
eternal, that they may know
Thee," not by information but the word is here: "experience."
"Have an experience of Thee." This is Life, you see, something
very definite.
Well,
I mustn't go on
with that, but just
indicate it and point it out. And here we are with Issachar who
had knowledge of
what Israel ought to
do. And our New Testament is built around these two
words; different
kinds of knowledge. Different kinds of knowledge. We leave
that as we go on.
Now, we have said that the Bible is marked by time marks and that we are brought with our New
Testament to a new time
mark or crisis. And everything for
you, for me, for all the Lord's people, is going, really, to
depend upon
whether we have this spiritual discernment, understanding... this
spiritual knowledge.
This Spiritual
Knowledge
This
kind of knowledge of the second category of which I have
referred - of what God
is really doing now,
what He is working
at now; not in
general, but in
particular - oh, if only this week could bring us all to that discernment! This is going to be more than a
Bible conference
of words and teaching. It's going to have tremendous issues. And
let me say at
once, I hope you are here for a crisis. I hope that you are here
prepared to be
turned upside down and inside out, prepared to leave a whole
regime if God
says, "That's finished with," and to really embrace His present
economy and
commit yourselves to it. I hope that is the position in which
you are. You will
be found out on that as we go on with this important matter of
recognizing and understanding,
and especially and
inclusively, of what happened, really
happened, when the Son of God, Jesus Christ, entered history and
came into this
world. Oh, perhaps you think you can give an answer to that.
What happened? I
know some things you would say. But, I am convinced, dear
friends, (and it
doesn't very much matter what I am convinced of, but for what
it's worth, I put
it that way) that very, very few Christians today really
understand what
happened when Jesus Christ came into this world. That is what we
are going to
spend hours upon, trusting the Lord to give us the opening of
our
understanding.
You
see, the coming of Jesus Christ into this world, into history,
split history
down the middle. It split history down the middle; on the one
side it said,
"Finished," and on the other side, "Beginning." A great, great,
immense divide
was represented by the entering into history of Jesus Christ. We
have got to
understand that divide.
There have been, of course, three cycles in relation to Him.
First there has
been:-
The Historical.
I
don't know how it has been with you, perhaps you have come in at
a later point,
but I remember when I first came to the Lord and became
interested in the
things of Christ. It was the time when everything was being made
of the
historical Jesus. The books that were being most read were those
classics of
the Life of Jesus or the Life of Christ. Some of you know of
Dean Farrar's "The
Life of Christ". All those things. The Jesus of Palestine, the
Jesus of
Bethlehem, of Nazareth, of Capernaum, Jesus of Jerusalem, Jesus
of the mound outside
Jerusalem called Calvary, Jesus of Gethsemane, the Jesus of the
three and a half
years, or the thirty years - the Jesus of history.
Everybody
was interested in that: they watched Him walk, and go, and speak
and act, here
and there, and everywhere, and it's all written up as the Life
of Jesus. Well,
that's what engaged us. There is nothing wrong, of course, with
it; it is quite
good. I suspect some of you are still reading lives of Christ,
on that level.
That was a phase, and it may be a phase still, but then there
came a change,
and we passed into what we might call:-
The Theological or Doctrinal
Christ.
After
that, all this arose about the Person of Christ, the Virgin
Birth, the Deity,
Godhead, and all of what is called "the fundamentals of the
faith of Jesus
Christ" - the theological and doctrinal and, my word, what a
phase it has been.
What a tremendous battleground the Person of Jesus Christ has
been.
Two phases. I wonder whether this second phase is passing. Of
course not, with
some; with many it's everything. There is nothing wrong with
that, of course.
I'm not here saying it's wrong to be occupied with the Person,
the Deity, the
Eternal Sonship, the Virgin Birth and so on, of Jesus. Nothing
wrong with that,
that is all right, you have to have that, but get over it. Get
over it! Sooner
of later, you'll have to get over it; it just won't do... the
thing (I was on the
verge of saying "it won't do the trick"!) It just won't get you
through.
Your
theology is not going to get you through when you move into a
realm of such
terrific spiritual conflict that your very faith will be struck
at, at its
roots. You may be shaken of all that you "know" in that
way. It will not
stand. People are not going to really get through the final
crisis on theology,
on Christian doctrine, though it may be fundamental. They cannot
get through on
that.
Now, there's your two phases. They may run concurrently, or they
may be more or
less defined as periods. But, there's another one, a third one,
which is the
ultimate, which is the supreme. It's about that we're going to
speak, I'm not
going to mention it now. We shall spend hours on that. Shall I, just to save you, it's:
The Spiritual Phase.
See,
you can have the historical and you can have the theological
without the
spiritual; and though you may have all that, and not have the
spiritual, you
are not going to survive. You haven't touched the real heart and
core of the
great divide, the great change that has taken place with the
coming of Jesus
Christ. It's the spiritual
life of
Christ that matters, not the historical. It's the spiritual understanding of Christ and not the
theological that
matters. But if you don't understand that, hold on for a day or
two, and we'll
be getting nearer as we go along.
Well,
these three phases are clearly recognized, are they not? And we
have come, now, to the last: the
spiritual, the revelation
of Jesus Christ inwardly by the
Holy Spirit; Supreme, absolutely essential, indispensable.
As I said,
God, when He moves (and He is moving now on this line if you can
discern, on
this line) He, of course, is moving onward, but He is moving
backward. And if
you get hold of that last thing that I have just said, you will
see how true it
is how God is moving back in order to move on.
What
is the New Testament based upon? The historical life of Jesus?
No. The
theological life of Jesus? No. It's all there. That's not His
foundation. The real
root of Christianity, this new
dispensational crisis and movement, the real root is gathered
into the words of
the Apostle Paul, who so, so, very much represents in himself,
in his own
experience and history with God, the nature of this whole
dispensation. And in
the simple but profound words, it is all gathered up: "It
pleased God - it
pleased God... to reveal His Son in me." This is something
more than the
Damascus Road objective experience. That was just the turning
point in the
great crisis. That was the impact upon him of a meaning which
was to begin then
and unfold through all the rest of his life. "It pleased God
to reveal His
Son in me." That's it. Not to me,
in me.
What he later wrote, quoted here last night: "That the God
of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Father of glory would give to you a spirit of
wisdom and revelation
in the knowledge" (our word, our second category word,
but with a prefix:
in the full
knowledge) "of Him."
A spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Him,
of Christ. That's
inward, that's inward: right deep down at the very source and
centre of our
being God has made us to see,
and to
see the significance of His Son, Jesus Christ. Out of that,
Christianity comes,
true Christianity, and
anything less
than that is dangerous Christianity. Dangerous for the
individual concerned and
dangerous for the Church.
This
is what I mean by the spiritual
crisis, the spiritual
aspect, above
and beyond and more than the historical and the theological or
the doctrinal.
The spiritual: the revelation of Jesus Christ within. That's it.
The Lord alone can do that. We all have to pray to the Father of
Glory to do
it. But it can be done, and it can be done here. It can be done
so that we go
away saying, "I have seen. I have seen! I can never be the same.
A whole regime
is left behind, an entirely new order has come in for me. I am
out of something,
and I am in something else; I have seen! I have seen Jesus
Christ." That's the
focal point, dear friends, of the message that I have to bring
to you.
Now
the Bible... let's get back again onto larger lines (and I must
keep this enemy
[time/watch] in view as much as I dislike him!) the
Bible is divided, (and this is child's talk) into two main
divisions, what we
call the Old Testament and the New Testament. But, note, it is
more than a
division of books. Genesis to Malachi comprising so many books,
one half of the
Bible, then from Matthew to Revelation, so many books, and thus
the Bible is
divided into two. Oh, but it is much more than a division of
books. It is this
great divide.
This Great Spiritual
Divide
The
four Gospels, what do they really mean? When you have stood back
and asked the question,
what do they represent? Well, there are two things I am going to
say about it. First
of all, they introduce the Person Who
Himself is the
crisis. The Person,
Who is Himself the crisis, and brings in and precipitates the
crisis and changes
the dispensation in its
entirety.
They've
introduced the Person Who does that and Who is that: the crisis
of the Christ.
But you notice, of course, common place, that all the four
Gospels, while
differing in details of content, some containing what others
don't, and so on, having
their own differences, all four Gospels head straight, direct,
up to the Cross.
Every one of them has this
characteristic in common, whatever other differences there may
be, they all
have this in common,
that they end with
the Cross. The Person of the crisis is introduced, and the
crisis itself is the
crisis of the Cross. The Cross is the crisis of the change that
has come in
with the Person. Be patient, as we move on. And this is what it
amounts to:
here is the Person, here is His earthly life and walk, work and
teaching, but none of
that can become of any value to anybody
until the Cross has been planted over it all.
You
can have all there is about the historic Jesus and the
theological Christ, but nothing
matters, nothing will happen until all that is in those Gospels
is brought
right up to the Cross, and the Cross makes effective the crisis
of the Person.
You see that? Lay hold of that.
So that the result and the issue is this: that really between
the two
divisions of the Bible, between the Old Testament and the New
Testament, right
there is the Cross. Right there's the Cross. You've got to put
the Cross between
Malachi and Matthew, so far as books are concerned, put it right
there, because
on the one side of the Cross all that goes before and leads up
to Malachi so
far as books are concerned (I am not speaking about the
chronological order, so
far as the arrangement is concerned) all that has been in that
from Genesis to
Malachi, on that side of the Cross, the Cross says: "No more, no
more. No,
finished! That's done with." The other side of the Cross... what?
Yes, "all
things new."
I
haven't got a bit of Fromke-itis [referring to Devern Fromke] or
I should draw
a big cross. And I would draw a thick line right down the
centre, from top to
bottom, not only on the Cross but above the Cross, right from
the heavens, down
through the Cross to the depths. A wide line, a no man's land,
and then on that
side of the Cross I would write one word: NOT! Not. One big
comprehensive word:
N-O-T as big as the Cross. On the other side of the Cross, the
onward side, not
the backward side, the onward side, I would put one other word:
B-U-T. "BUT"!
NOT... "BUT".
Now, dear friends, I have just said something that can take up all
your time for
the rest of your life. Do you know those two words are two
governing words
throughout the whole of your New Testament? If you would like
now to make a
very closely, analytical study of your New Testament in the
light of this, and
underline every occurrence of those two words, you will have an
immense, new
comprehension, revelation, of the meaning of Christ and of the
difference that
He has made, of the great divide, and of what we are in.
"Not"
- "But"
I
dare not launch out onto it. It applies to everything! How much
dare I say
without being involved in this? It applies to, it is made to
apply to, the very
beginning of Christian history in the individual. Open your
Gospel by John.
Where are you at once? "Which were born NOT of the flesh, NOT
of bloods, NOT
of the will of man." Here's your
big NOT at the very beginning! "BUT of God."
NOT... BUT.
Now,
if I went on to show you how this applies to everything in the New Testament (we are going to
come to it later
on in some particulars) but here we are: that Cross, with its
great divide and
centre looking backward over all that has been right up to that
point and
saying, "NOT". Not! Not any longer. No more, finished. A closed
door, no way
through. Heaven is in God's great "NOT". Ah, but in the resurrection... and resurrection is the
positive, isn't it?
Always.
Not... not, BUT! Now
"neither" is only another word isn't it, for "not".
"Neither is
circumcision anything or
uncircumcision, BUT!" NOT! Not, BUT a new creation. So you could
go on. It is
just wonderful how those two words open up everything and give
us an insight
into what has come to us, and what we have come into with the
coming of Jesus
Christ.
This
great division - with the Cross there between the testaments: the end of
Malachi, which is a tragic, tragic book of the failure of
everything in the
past, and at the beginning Matthew... hope, light, life,
everything fresh, new. The
great "BUT" of a new order of things. It's the end of a
system and the
beginning of an entirely new one. The Cross of the Lord Jesus
has written these
two words large over
the whole
history covered by the Bible. The Bible is intended to
comprehend human
history, and human history is comprehended in these two words: "Not"
– "But."
Now there is something here that I must say, that I think may be
helpful. I
hope it will be. You
see, the Cross, the Cross is a very practical thing. With
God it is not the
doctrine, or just the doctrine, of the way of salvation, the way
of redemption.
It's that, it's not the theology of the atonement and all such
doctrine, and it
is certainly not just the historic thing represented by the
crucifix. The Cross is an
immensely practical thing
with God, intended to make actual
this divide; and although you may know all about the message of
the Cross (or think
you do), you may be just full of the teaching of the Cross. The
test, really, of
the knowledge that you have about the Cross is whether this
divide has been
made in you, made in you;
that the
Cross has resulted in the leaving behind of one entire regime
and system and
order.
Oh, I know you say, "Of course it has meant that I have left the
world and the
things of the world". Oh, that is almost nonsense to talk like
that. You really
don't know what you have
got to leave
behind. But
you will learn under the
hand of God what the Cross means about the elimination, the
moving away,
further and further away. We are coming to that in Hebrews. I'm
battling all
the time not to overtake too much. But you come, we are going
into this letter
to the Hebrews, and you will come to a phrase which, of course,
of course, you
know: "Let us therefore go to Him without the camp, bearing
His reproach."
What does that mean to you?
"Without the Camp"
It
takes a lifetime to learn what that means, and it means going
through some
literally terrific, devastating experiences of our soul life.
This is the work
of the Cross. It's a going out on the one side. A going out of,
what? An
immensity, but it's "to Him." Oh, it's to Him - that is another
immensity,
isn't it? You see what I mean? The Cross is a tremendously
practical thing,
forcing this gap, this divide, wider and wider as we go on so
that the fact is
(like it or not like it) the fact is that as we move more and
more in spiritual
understanding and apprehension of the meaning of Christ, we find
ourselves more
and more alone so far as many Christians are concerned, and
certainly so far as
the traditional system of Christianity is concerned.
Well, now to bring this (which is only preparatory,
introductory) to a close,
let me say, again coming back to the starting point, the progress,
progress in the
life and purpose of God with which this letter to the Hebrews
has to do in its
entirety. You know that, don't you? "Let us...", what?
"Let us" that is
one of the key words, key phrases, to the whole letter. "Let
us..." "Oh no,
you've gone too far, brother. You said 'let us go on.' You've
gone too far.
Therefore, let us leave!" That is the first letter. Therefore,
let us leave,
let us beware, let us go on.
What
I am saying is that progress in the life and purpose of God for
the individual
and for the Church, depends (and if you forget everything else,
write this
inside) depends upon spiritual
discernment.
Spiritual Discernment
This kind of spiritual
knowledge and
understanding as to the nature of this great
change that has come in with the Lord Jesus... discernment
of it! Now,
if you go back, and we will for a moment, go back to our Old
Testament passage,
1 Chronicles 12. Note the chapter don't you? Have you scanned
the chapter? It
is a new movement isn't it? It is a crisis, a turning point.
David is out
there, outside the camp. He's outside the camp. He is in the
wilderness, he is
in his cave. And now there are coming to him men of all the
tribes, or of many
of the tribes, just nuclei, just a few, a kind of remnant of
Israel, coming to
him outside the camp. And they're described as their various
characteristics,
men, men of valor; men of courage; men of strength, great
strength; men of
ability to make war; men who are committed with all their might,
for it says:
"These came with a perfect heart."
Very good, and so then, all
these coming
ones, who are falling away to David, are characterized by these
things. And
then right there, this: this change of complexion, it looks like
a new, a
different category: men of Issachar who had knowledge of the
times
(understanding of the times) and knew what Israel ought to do.
Right at the
heart of this return movement, this new movement of God which is
a recovery
movement, right at the heart of it, there is put this
contrasting, almost
striking thing: "men who had understanding of the times, and
knew what Israel
ought to do." And I venture to suggest that with all the driving
force of these
other men, all their muscles, all their physical force, and all
that side of
things, but for these men of Issachar there would have been
something lacking
which might have spoiled the whole movement. I believe it is put
there to show
that with all, with all that is being done (rightly and
well-meaningly) the
thing that must be here right at the heart of everything is spiritual understanding,
spiritual
discernment, spiritual knowledge, knowing what the
significance of this
time is, knowledge of the times and what this means.
Oh, this is not just something happening that men are doing. No,
this has a
meaning, a deep, a profound, Divine meaning; and these people have seen it. They have understanding
as to the
meaning of this present time and because they have
understanding, they know
what Israel ought to do. Don't you feel that's important, very
vital?
Well,
you say, what did the men of Issachar really see? What was it
that they
understood? What was it that they knew Israel ought to do? Pause
and think.
Look at the context again. Of course, it's historic in
illustration, but
spiritual in principle, and the answer to that in this
dispensation is the
Letter to the Hebrews. Where do you read it in your Letter to
the Hebrews? "God,
having in times past (old times) proceeded
in this way, adopted this method; He is finished with those times and
hath at the end of such
times and methods
spoken in His Son, Whom He appointed Heir of all things."
We have come to David. God's chosen, sovereignly
chosen, God's elect, God's appointed, God's intended ruler,
God's principle of
heavenly authority amongst the Lord's people - all that David
means. They knew that
Israel ought to turn back to
David and put David in the place for which he had been
anointed of God.
Now that's simple, isn't it, in language, but don't forget it
represented
something. You've still got Saul alive, you know! You've still
got the old
regime of Saul. He is not dead yet, he has his forty years to
run and, my word,
what a problem for Israel! God's man, anointed man, is not in
his place fully,
he is on the way there; but this is God's way.
Turn
over to your letter to the Hebrews and there you are! What is
the movement, the
final movement, the full
movement, which
embraces all the
parts, the fragments, comprehends all and makes everything
final? Fulness and
finality are the words to
write over the Letter to the Hebrews. It is a Christ movement
with spiritual
understanding of what He is, Who He is, what He represents in
the universe of
God - it is the spiritual apprehension of Christ. Oh, the words
sound so feeble,
don't they? So feeble... Perhaps
familiarity robs them of their strength and point; but, dear
friends,
everything for Christianity, everything
for Christianity, for destiny, depends now upon an
adequate apprehension of
the meaning of Jesus Christ in God's order of things. And this
is going to be
devastating, devastating to a whole system, and a Christian
system, so called.
Just devastating for you, for me; it will be that.
It
is going, for us, to disintegrate. Our Christianity may
disintegrate. Perhaps
you don't understand what I mean. Yes, there is going to be a
big "No" of God
written over a whole Christian system and men, although they are
not intelligent
as to this, they do sense, strongly and growingly sense, that
they have got to
do something to keep Christianity intact. I believe that the
whole ecumenical
movement is a tremendous effort to save Christianity from
collapsing.
The
whole World Council of Churches is to put Christianity on
crutches and save its
reputation. Men are doing this, a tremendous effort, because
there are those
who are saying Christianity has had its day, it's had its day,
it no longer
means anything. And you say, "Well, that's infidelity, that's
apostasy!" But,
dear friends, don't you make any mistake; if you are going on
with God, you are
going to come into spiritual experiences in your life with God
where you will
be tested on every point of your Christian life as to whether
this is valid, as
to whether this will stand up to the situation, as to whether
this is going to
get me through. Yes, on the things that you believe most
strongly and think you
know most fully, you are going to be tested. Don't make any
mistake about it - the
time may come when in your life you will be tempted to question
the very
deepest realities of your past conviction.
There are men and women in this world who are going through that
now. Quite
easy? I think of some of those who have spent long years in
prison and I read
what they wrote before, and I have to say, I wonder if they
believe that now?
I wonder if they hold to that now? I wonder if that is getting
them through
now? I wonder... That is a tremendous statement that they made
about the
all-sufficiency of Christ, and so on and so on, but I wonder, I
believe they
will come through because He is Lord, because the heart is right
with Him. But,
mark you, I am simply saying this: that this great question of
the real, spiritual
significance of our faith, of our Christianity, is going to be
put sorely to
the test. It is going to be found out then whether it is
Christian tradition,
Christian doctrine, Christian theology, the Christian system
generally,
commonly accepted, or whether... what? It is Christ! It's Christ.
We are going to
be stripped down to Christ. Stripped down to Christ, the place
where we say,
"All I have left after all my learning and teaching and
Christian work, all I
have left is the Lord Himself." But is that going to be a fatal
position? Not
at all!
You
know about the old woman on the ship, don't you? In a tremendous
storm, she
looked at the captain and said, "Captain, are we going to be
sunk? Is this the
end?" The captain said, "You had better pray." Oh! Has it come
to that? Yes, we
will be wrecked on Christ and then we will be found out whether
we are under
the "Not" or under the "But." Shall we pray...
Now, Lord, for Thee it is to interpret, explain and apply and
give the
understanding. Our reaction to it all is: this flesh cannot,
this flesh cannot.
We in ourselves cannot. We know it, BUT, Thou art sufficient.
Our hearts are
open to Thee, Lord, our hearts, we trust, are truly toward
Thee. Make use of
this feeble ministry to give us interpretation of future
experiences in Thy
dealings with us, Thy strange ways. Oh Lord, open our eyes and
give us
spiritual understanding we ask in the Name of Thy Son, amen.