We return to the two passages of scripture
around which our thoughts are circling at this
time.
The first letter of Peter, chapter 1, verse
3.
Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great
mercy beget us again unto a living hope
by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the
dead.
A living hope by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ.
The letter of Paul to the Colossians, chapter
1, verse 27.
Whom God was pleased to make known what
is the riches of the glory of this
mystery among the nations, which is Christ in
you.
The hope of glory.
While a very great deal of proof and
evidence and material is drawn together
to enforce the one fundamental
reality, it is that reality upon
which we must keep our eye and try
not to lose it in the tremendous amount
that gathers around it.
But I feel quite sure, dear friends, that
we will agree, and I trust very heartily
agree when we close this gathering, that that
which the Lord is bringing before us at
this time is a, if not the, and
I think we could say the most vital
thing in the whole of the Christian life.
The meaning, the reality and the meaning of
those last words.
Christ in you.
The hope.
Glory.
So we are concerned at this time with
Christ living, dwelling, growing within
as the only hope for anything but the
hope of God for everything.
We, in the earlier meditation, sought to show
how mightily this was proved in the experience
of the first believers and the first apostles.
As we saw firstly how the cross brought
desolation to everything until Christ became
an inward reality.
Indeed we could say that that is the
very purpose of the cross on one side,
to show the hopelessness of everything until Christ
comes in, in a living way.
We saw the hopelessness of a merely outward
association with Christ as they spent their time
with him in the days of his flesh.
All the wonderful truth about him being
right present with them.
The infinite truth of incarnation, God manifest in
the flesh.
The wonder of his personality, that divine personality
which was all the time registering itself and
yet not understood.
But of which everyone was conscious.
The impress of a different and a superior
kind of man, of humanity, of personality.
The great fact that right in their midst
through the whole time there was one who
carried in her heart the secret of his
birth, his miraculous birth.
The fact of all his mighty miracles in
every realm.
Then of his teaching which altogether confounded and
defeated the best scholars of his day.
They could never get equal with him, say
nothing of defeating him.
All that they had, with all that they
were closely associated for that time.
And yet when the cross came, it completely
shattered their faith, their hope, and they were
all, the twelve, the seventy and all the
others, scattered.
Forsaking, fleeing, denying, as though all that
went for nothing.
Leaving the necessity for something in addition to
that.
It proved valuable eventually, all of it, when
that other something came.
But it proved to be helpless for them
in the day of the great ordeal.
Because that other was not there and the
other was Christ on the inside, Christ in
you.
As we can say with Paul, Christ in
you, the hope of glory, Christ not in
you.
With all this can only bring hopelessness.
We went on to work, twelve and the
seventy receiving a delegated authority and sent forth
with that authority to heal the sick, cast
out demons, raise the dead.
And so they did, came back rejoicing and
proclaiming even that demons are subject unto us.
Delegated authority, official power, and
in the end, what?
Again as though it all went for nothing,
they are all scattered and peeled in the
deepest doubt, uncertainty.
Yes, being upbraided by Him for their unbelief,
again and again, utterly without hope.
And the cross becomes an actuality until He
came in and by the Holy Spirit took
up residence within.
And then it was different.
Well, that far we went this afternoon with
many more words.
We proceed this evening a little further with
this matter.
The hopelessness of human nature in itself.
Now we look at these.
We don't know very much about the seventy.
We know a little about some of the
followers, like Mary Magdalene, know the Bethany family.
Some others, just a little about them.
We know a good deal more about the
twelve.
As we were saying this afternoon, Peter always
stands as a good representative of the others.
Well, what was true of him was so
true of them in many ways.
We look at them and there are a
lot of good things about them.
Quite a lot of good things about Simon
Peter.
I think in many ways a very lovable
kind of man.
There's no doubt whatever that on the credit
side there was a very warm heart there.
And a warm heart for his master.
There was real good intention.
Good intention people can, as we say, put
their foot in it often.
But good intention was there.
He meant so well.
His motives were all the best.
We could go on saying a lot of
good things about him and about John.
Perhaps you think you could say better things
about John, about them all.
There's no doubt about it, there was a
very good credit side to these people.
They're no worse than we are.
Perhaps in many ways a great deal better
than some of us.
Human nature, the point is, human nature, not
at its worst, but perhaps at its best,
was represented by that company around the Lord
Jesus.
At all their faults.
Sometimes they're blundering, yet not evil.
Nothing vice about them.
Good, honest, open hearted men and women.
In their intention and in a certain realm
committed to Jesus.
And very thoroughly committed to Jesus.
Sometimes breaking out in very strong affirmations and
declarations of devotion and intention to go to
death with him should it ever become necessary.
Calvary, the cross.
Now, what's the real truth?
What is the real eternal value of it
all?
How much of it will go through, survive
and triumph?
Not one bit, not one bit.
We see the desolation of all their protestations,
all their confessions, all their declared good intentions,
all their professions of love, devotion, faithfulness, lying
in ruins.
The most representative is denying repeatedly with oaths
and with curses he has any knowledge of
this Galilean.
We needn't say any more.
The utter hopelessness of human nature in itself.
Where could hope be found?
Would there ever be hope again?
Will hope rise out of those ashes?
Is it gone forever?
Is it finally and eternally hopeless?
Yes, if it's left to them.
If they're left to themselves.
Where will hope be?
Not in themselves, but in Christ in them.
That will be the hope of glory, change,
transfigured outlook, shame, shame, remorse, reproach, glory.
And let us be very, very clear about
this, dear friends, because it's just at this
very point that you and I need to
learn all our lessons over again.
The hope will never be found in ourselves.
Even when we are Christians.
Even though we go right on as far
as any Christians can go, should he leave
us for five minutes, it's as hopeless as
it was before ever we started.
In me, and it's an apostle, and a
mature, experienced apostle, that is speaking in me,
that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good
thing.
There's no hope there.
Christ in you, the hope, and the only
hope.
2 Corinthians 5 contains the very foundation of
any hope.
Where a man is concerned.
The love of Christ, the love of Christ
constraineth us, because we thus judge.
One died in the place of all, therefore
all died.
They which live should henceforth live no longer
unto themselves, but unto him who in their
place died and rose again.
No, we know man after the flesh.
Wherefore if any man be in Christ, there
is a new creation.
The old things are passed away, or they
become new, but all things are out from
God.
The way of hope.
Yes, through the devastation of the cross, up
into the resurrection where it is Christ.
The center and the circumference of a new
creation.
A new creation, that's it.
So, there is no hope whatever.
Absolutely no hope in man naturally.
I say we've got to learn that lesson
all over anew, because you're always, always trying
to find hope in yourself.
That's your trouble.
It's your trouble.
Shall I put it another way?
Your trouble is that you can't find any
hope in yourself, and the fact that you're
troubled about that shows that you want to.
You haven't given yourself up.
God gave you up in the cross of
Jesus Christ as a hopeless mess, and shown
by that very cross how hopeless we are.
But in raising Jesus from the dead, taking
him up, and then sending him as in
the Holy Spirit to dwell within, God started
a new basis of hope.
It is never in us.
It is in Christ.
It never will be in us.
We'll be as hopeless at the end as
we were at the beginning.
It will always be in Christ.
Friends, we've got to make everything of Christ.
Far more than we have.
Oh, that we could free ourselves from that
old ground of expectation where we are concerned.
We could quit it and get positively onto
the ground of Christ.
Christ my hope.
With both hands I lay hold on Christ.
Christ only.
But he is the hope of glory.
That is, as to our self-worn attitude,
we've got to take God's position about ourselves.
God's position about ourselves is it has nothing
to do with us.
He has only to do with his Son.
Now, here opens a very large field of
perplexing experience.
And it is interpreted by this one truth.
And this one key opens the door to
so much.
Why does the Lord ignore so much of
our prayer?
And why does the Lord not come onto
the ground that we try to get him
to come onto?
Why do we not find the Lord with
us in much crying, beseeching, entreating?
He doesn't answer.
Doesn't move.
Why?
The answer, dear friends, the explanation is usually
that we're on the wrong ground.
We are taking account of things that God
has finished with long ago.
We are wanting to get God onto ground
that he's abandoned forever.
You will only have the Lord, or we
shall only have the Lord with us at
all while we keep on the ground of
Christ.
Make no mistake about it.
You've got to find out whether that's Christ's
ground, or your ground, or other people's ground.
The ground of human judgments, human interpretations, human
feelings, human desire, that which is natural.
If that ground is the ground on which
we are trying to get the Lord to
encamp and do something, he'll be silent.
And silent forever.
He'll not move him.
One thing about God is that he is
a realist.
A realist.
And if he says in the cross, I
close the door forever to the natural man,
you'll never get him opening that door again.
Not a bit.
Break your heart in prayer to get him
to move and to act.
He won't do it.
Only on one ground, that's the ground of
his son.
Can you provide the ground of Christ?
Then you will find the door open with
God.
And he's coming through.
That's his only ground.
It will be despair and hopelessness until we
can get clean through onto pure Christ ground.
And then it's an open heaven.
It's an open heaven.
It's release.
I said that opens a very big field.
You see, it opens the field of the
whole of the Bible.
Carry this conference right on for the next
two or three years with our Bible in
hand on this one thing only.
On this one thing only.
I would ask you to take this as
the key to your New Testament.
Make no mistake about it, this is the
key to the New Testament.
It is of the old, of course.
But in spiritual reality, every book of the
New Testament must be read in the light
of this.
Christ as God's ground.
And God's ground of hope alone.
You see, that passes from the individual to
the collective.
Oh, we haven't learned much yet of this.
I am aware, dear friends, that this is
perhaps the most difficult thing in the whole
Christian life.
For all of us, every one of us.
And in this I am the most backward
of the pupils.
We will not get anywhere with one another
in our relationship as the Lord's people if
we are going to keep on the natural
ground of one another.
You are judging me according to what I
am naturally.
Taking account of me because of what you
see I am just as a man in
myself.
You will have all the ground for despair
that ever you can want.
And I'll do the same where you're concerned.
I'll have to give you up.
There's no hope.
Some of us, of course, are unable to
see all the frailties and faults of others.
And where does it lead?
Despair, doesn't it?
Deadlock?
No way through.
No future.
No promise.
The Lord is not with us in that.
Henceforth know we no man after the flesh.
What is the henceforth since all died?
All died?
Ah, this lesson for us all is just
this.
To take account of the minutest bit of
Christ that there is in another.
Focus upon that.
The work of grace.
Go as far as you can, even if
it's only in a sort of negative way
and say, well, what would they be but
for the grace of God?
But go further and say, see what the
grace of God has done.
Now, that's the only way of hope.
Christ.
Christ in you.
Now, do you see what that leads to?
Oh, dear friends, it does mean what this
New Testament is all about.
That we've got to provide one another with
a great deal more of Christ in ourselves.
For hope.
There's got to be a continual increase of
Christ.
A continual increase of the work of grace
in us.
The grace of the Lord Jesus.
It's the only way.
So, as I've said the whole of the
New Testament is about this first.
Christ must get inside.
And then Christ must grow inside.
Until, until.
Will it ever be there is more of
Christ than there is of ourselves?
But that's the way.
The apostles who, as we said this afternoon,
were so meticulous and particular about this matter
of converts receiving the Holy Spirit as a
definite, positive, concrete experience at crisis were
just as particular in all their teaching that
not only should the Holy Spirit have been
received but that they should be filled with
the Spirit.
Filled with the Spirit.
Be filled with the Spirit.
It's only the other way of saying Christ
is in but Christ has got to be
fully formed within.
More and more.
It is a very practical school, isn't it?
Very hard lessons.
But does it not explain much?
Yes, it does.
It's the heart and the core of true
spiritual Christianity.
Christ.
Only Christ.
The Alpha, the Omega.
Beginning, the end, and all between.
A few words before we go on just
another point.
The hopelessness of the kingdom until the King
is within.
How much we could say about the hopes,
the expectations concerning the kingdom that filled the
hearts of every true, the heart of every
true Israelite.
And as we know, these disciples and apostles
were very true representatives of Israel's hopes for
the kingdom.
They cherished that hope.
They built everything upon that hope.
All their thoughts, their mentality was concerning the
kingdom.
Indeed, their very committal to Christ, leaving all
things to follow Him had the kingdom in
view, as its motive.
Right up to the last minutes, we might
say, before He went to glory.
There, I was going to say, obsessed with
this kingdom matter.
Dost thou at this time restore the kingdom
to Israel?
The last words to Him on record before
He went.
But what about the effect of the cross
upon all that?
Yes, the cross, the crucifixion shattered all their
hopes of the kingdom.
We had trusted that it had been He.
We had trusted that it had been He
that would restore the kingdom.
And here, their kingdom lies waste.
And all their hopes, so far as He
was concerned, and the kingdom, were shattered.
Just scattered like dust to the wind.
Where is the kingdom now?
What's the hope of the kingdom now?
Hopelessness of the kingdom came back when He
came in.
That is what Peter is talking about.
Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who hath begotten us again
unto a living hope by the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead unto an inheritance.
Not to crumble again to the dust of
inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, that faded not away, reserved
in heaven, is the kingdom visioned with its
back.
On what ground?
Christ, the King, with Him.
That was Peter's note on the day of
Pentecost.
That was the preaching of the first preachers,
Jesus Christ is Lord, His Lord.
God hath made Him both Lord and Christ.
That was Peter's note on the day of
Pentecost.
That was the preaching of the first preachers,
Jesus Christ is Lord, His Lord.
God hath made Him both Lord and Christ.
King of kings and Lord of lords.
There's only that hope for the kingdom.
But that's perhaps speaking in large terms, you
see.
What I'm talking about is the preaching.
The preaching.
The preaching of the kingdom, yes.
If you like to alter the phraseology and
say, preaching for man's salvation, that's the kingdom.
It's called evangelization.
But here we've missed the point so much.
What is evangelization?
What is preaching the kingdom?
What is preaching the gospel?
What is it?
Is it just and only announcing certain truths?
Certain facts or certain doctrines?
Is it?
No.
According to the true meaning of the very
words themselves, it is bringing Christ.
Bringing Christ.
Not only speaking about Him, preaching concerning Him,
it is bringing Him.
There is no hope unless you bring Christ.
Your preaching has got to bring Christ.
Your evangelization has got to bring Christ.
It's not to be something in itself.
Christ has got to come in it.
And therefore, therefore, can you not see, dear
friends, why at the beginning the demand was
that they should preach with the Holy Ghost
sent down from heaven?
What is that?
It is nothing other than Christ coming in,
in power, in presence, in presence.
If you and I cannot bring Christ to
the unsaved, we can preach until we are
blue in the face, and it will have
no effect.
You've got to bring Christ to them, into
their presence.
They have got to meet Christ when we
preach.
Sense Christ.
Preaching must be by the Holy Spirit within.
Why so much preaching is ineffective?
Not in the power of the indwelling Spirit.
That is not just a criticism.
It's a challenge.
Salvation rests on that ground.
The hope for men's salvation rests upon the
ground that we bring Christ to men.
I know it's bringing the gospel, the good
news, but it's with that bringing the person
by the Spirit and in the Spirit.
Churches are only born by Christ being introduced.
He is the seed.
The living seed out of which the organism
grows.
You cannot found and form churches from the
outside, collect people and call the collection a
church.
That's not the New Testament way at all.
Every body of believers in any place has
got to be the embodiment of Christ.
One reality is not their teaching or their
manner of procedure, but that Christ is met,
is found, is there.
There's no doubt about it that Christ is
in the midst.
Those people have Christ.
You meet them, you meet Christ.
When you go amongst them, you find Christ.
Christ is in their life.
Christ governs their life.
He governs their business.
He governs their hope.
He governs their relationships with one another.
It's Christ.
The only hope for churches to come into
being, Christ is brought.
And it's the only ground and way of
believers being built up and growing.
If we just grow ourselves, it would be
an awful thing that grows.
Tragedy is so often that there is fear
and the interest of God is made the
playground for the flesh to inflate itself and
display itself and strut up and down.
No?
Spiritual growth, you can understand this, is not
our growth in that sense that we, in
what we are growing.
Spiritual growth is just the increase of Christ
in us.
That's perhaps too simple a thing to say.
But what I'm saying in all this, you
see, in all this, is one thing, Christ.
Only Christ.
The only hope from beginning to end in
any phase or stage or form is Christ
risen, changed, the scene of desolation and devastation
which meets our eyes after the cross, changed
that and gave a new hope, gave a
new hope when he came back in the
Spirit and entered in and began the realization
of the hope.
That's what we have, isn't it, in the
New Testament.
The hope brought in with the resurrection and
then a proceeding to the fulfillment of the
hope.
If we read the book of the Acts,
so-called, it's the hope working out, isn't
it?
The hope in progressive fulfillment.
Well, dear friends, that's where I'm closing this
evening unless it is to underline or reemphasize
this one thing.
As we theologically distinguish the persons of the
Trinity, we do not divide between Christ and
the Holy Spirit in work, in nature.
Therefore, when we speak about Christ in you,
we mean the Holy Spirit within.
When we speak of the Holy Spirit dwelling
within, we mean Christ within.
It's what the Holy Spirit himself means.
What Jesus himself meant when he said, he
shall not speak of himself.
He shall take the things which are mine,
show them to you.
They work together in such complete identity that
you cannot distinguish between them.
Though Christ remains at the Father's right hand,
he is here in you, in us, by
the Holy Spirit.
Now, my final emphasis is upon this.
Our need to be very sure about this
matter of the indwelling Spirit, which is the
indwelling Christ.
I know all the things that are going
to arise around us.
Know what questions you could begin at once
to fire at me about all this matter
of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and
so on.
I'm not surprised that the devil has supremely
confused this whole thing and brought it under
reproach.
Not surprised.
The devil at least knows a good thing
when he sees it.
He knows values when he comes into touch
with them.
And this is the matter upon which everything
hangs.
But, leaving all interpretations apart, all questions, let
us come down to the fact that you
and I must, in our Christian life, know
two things.
Our death with Christ to the old man.
And, through that, Christ within.
The Holy Spirit within.
Starting on heavenly ground only and entirely ignoring
all earthly ground.
Going on on heavenly ground.
That's the way of the Spirit.
Oh, let us learn or seek to learn
this lesson.
Don't want to throw you into the vortex
of great confusion or questions as to whether
you've ever received the Holy Spirit because of
this or that or something else about manifestations.
Don't be troubled about that.
You can know, listen to me, you can
know that Christ is in you.
You can know that the Holy Spirit is
in you by a thousand spiritual evidences without
any of those manifestations that some people say
are the essential proof of the Holy Spirit.
I mean of tongues and such like.
No, they are not essential to the fact
and reality of the Holy Spirit being within
and filling.
They are not.
It's the reality that you and I need.
Not some particular kind of sensations.
And demonstrations.
And noises.
And what not.
It's the deep reality that Christ is in
us.
And there is our hope.
Our hope of glory.
Our only hope of glory, but our true
hope of glory.