...of spiritual truth.
And it took an American to do it.
Because, in my estimation, the car is the
extension of the American body.
They walk on wheels.
Well, I do hope you at the back
can hear me.
I will do my best.
If you would like to turn to...
Well, no, I'll read it to you.
The Colossian letter of the Apostle Paul.
I'm going to read in chapter 1.
And I'm going to read from verse 18.
And he, that is, Jesus, is the head
of the body, the church, who is the
beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in
all things he might have the preeminence.
For it was the good pleasure of the
Father that in him should all the fullness
dwell.
And chapter 2, and verse 9 and 10
and 11.
For in him, that is, in the Lord
Jesus, dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead
bodily.
And in him ye are made full, who
is the head of all principality and power,
in whom ye were also circumcised with a
circumcision not made.
Could we just bow together in a word
of prayer?
Beloved Lord, we are so thankful that we
are found here in your presence.
We thank you already, Lord, that you got
our sister out of the lift when she
was trapped in it.
We thank you for the spirit and response
in worshipping you that has already been witnessed.
We praise you, Lord, that this has not
taken you by surprise.
And if there is something you want to
underline tonight, then Lord, we are all for
it.
Our prayer is that you will give a
special grace and a special power.
Since these are special circumstances, Lord, measure it
with all the grace we need for these
circumstances and all the power that we need.
We thank you, Lord, for the anointing which
is ours in our Lord Jesus, made real
to us in the person of the Holy
Spirit.
Into that anointing we stand by faith this
evening.
We pray for those who will have some
difficulty either in hearing or in understanding English
without the possibility of a translation.
We pray, Lord, add in something this evening
that will be very special for every one
of us.
Let there be something that is done in
our hearts to the praise of your glory.
And we shall be careful to give you
all the worship and thanksgiving of our hearts.
We ask this in the name of our
Lord Jesus.
I have said now in the three times
I have spoken, there is no eternal purpose
of God apart from the Lord Jesus.
Without Him there is nothing.
God gives us everything in Christ and nothing
outside of Him.
It is a very simple statement and yet
it is profound in every single way because
it takes some Christian believers a lifetime to
come to this recognition.
It would have been so simple to have
come to it right at the beginning.
God does not deal in things.
He deals in a person.
It is not joy as some thing or
peace as some thing or power as some
thing.
It is always the peace of Christ which
passes all understanding, which garrisons your heart and
mind in Christ Jesus.
It is the peace of Christ that is
to rule in your hearts.
It is the joy of the Lord that
is your strength.
It is the power, the exceeding greatness of
His power to us all who believe that
takes us through every obstacle and every problem
and every difficulty and enables us to overcome.
God does not deal in things.
He deals in a person.
And therefore everything to do with the Christian
life and everything to do with the church
of God and everything to do with the
work of God and the service of God
is basically a relationship, a living, growing, practical,
relevant relationship to the Lord Jesus.
If the enemy can destroy that relationship, if
he can put it into deep freeze, if
he can somehow or other paralyze that relationship
with the Lord Jesus, the church becomes a
heavy teaching.
The Christian life becomes a whole series of
outward observances and behavior.
It has lost the heart of its meaning.
This is the testimony of Jesus.
The testimony of Jesus when it is present,
whatever it is, certainly within the church, certainly
even within the servant of God, and certainly
within the Christian life, the individual believer, it
means a person has a relationship with the
Lord Jesus.
They are hearing the Lord Jesus.
They are walking with Him and in Him
and by Him.
It is something so tremendous when you see
it like this.
Now in the times that have been my
responsibility, I have managed to tread on the
toes of both Dana and Brother Stephen.
But I have talked about Christ as the
heir of all things.
And I have spoken about the secret of
God, Christ, Christ as the mystery of God.
And I have spoken about Christ as the
image of the invisible God.
And I have spoken about the lion and
the little lamb.
It is a tremendous thing that we deal
with when we touch Christ, when we see
the eternal purpose of God in Christ.
I want this evening to speak about Christ,
the fullness of God, His centrality and His
all-inclusiveness.
I thought for a long time, what could
I use instead of this awkward phrase, the
all-inclusiveness of Christ.
Mr. Sparks used to use that wonderful phrase.
But I couldn't find any simple Anglo-Saxon
word that would sum up the fact that
the Lord Jesus, everything of God is included
in Him.
It is the all-inclusiveness of Christ.
It does not matter where you turn in
this Colossian letter.
Christ is both the center and the circumference.
Not only the center, He is the circumference
and everything in between.
He is the head of the body.
Well, think of it for a moment.
A body is nothing without the head.
It cannot function without the head.
A brother came up to me the last
time I spoke about this and spoke about
a headless body and a bodiless head both
being dead once parted, and said, did you
know that a chicken was kept alive for
so many months without a head?
Well, maybe that's so with a chicken.
I haven't heard of a human being yet
kept alive without a head.
But the whole point that the Holy Spirit
uses this extraordinary illustration in the New Covenant,
in the New Testament, is because basically there
is no point to a body without a
head.
The expression of the head, the expression of
personality, the expression of the will, everything to
do with the life of a person is
somehow connected with their head and their body.
The body may be the expression, but the
head is absolutely central to it all.
That He might have the preeminence in all
things, isn't that an interesting phrase?
We'll come back to that a little later.
But it doesn't matter where you turn.
It pleased the Father that in Christ should
all the fullness dwell, center and circumference.
For in Him dwells all the fullness of
God in bodily form.
And in Him you are made complete.
Christ, center and circumference.
Everything in between.
The fullness of God in Christ.
Whether it's a new heaven and a new
earth, whether it is a new creation, whether
it's a new man, whether it's the church,
or whether it's the individual Christian believer, Christ
is to be the center and the circumference.
This new man, He is everything in this
new man.
Have you noticed the little phrase that comes
again and again in the letters of Paul,
that Christ may be everything in everyone?
It even speaks of the natural creation, that
He might be all and in all.
What a tremendous thing this is.
Whether new creation, new heaven and a new
earth, whether it's the new man, whether it's
the church, whether it's an individual believer, there's
something so tremendous about this.
The all-inclusiveness of the Lord Jesus of
Christ.
Now, here I have a problem because of
light.
But the simplest reading of the Colossian letter
must bring you to a conclusion that the
Lord Jesus is the center and the circumference
of everything as far as God is concerned.
Now, I'm going to try and do it
in spite of this problem.
It's no good me telling you for you
to turn there, but I will do it
as far as I can.
Colossians chapter 1 and verse 14.
Listen to this.
In whom we have our redemption.
In whom?
In Christ.
In whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness
of our sins.
Verse 16, For in Him were all things
created, in the heavens and upon the earth,
things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or
dominions or principalities or powers.
All things have been created to Him and
unto Him, and He is before all things.
And in Him all things hold together.
Verse 17.
Well, we've just read that.
Verse 19.
For it was the good pleasure of the
Father that in Him, that is in Christ,
should all the fullness dwell.
Now, all I want you to notice is
this little, little phrase, In Him.
Do you begin to, it begins to dawn
upon you that everything is in Christ.
It is an extraordinary statement, really.
We've got so used to it in reading
our Bibles that we pass over it without
even thinking.
Let me go on.
Let me go to verse 28.
Verse 28.
Whom we proclaim, admonishing every man and teaching
every man in all wisdom, that we may
present every man complete or full grown, perfect
in Christ.
Then look at chapter 2.
Chapter 2, verse 3.
In whom are all the treasures of wisdom
and knowledge hidden?
In whom?
In Christ.
All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Knowledge is to do with facts.
Wisdom is what to do with the facts.
How to apply the facts.
How the facts apply to any given situation.
Wisdom and knowledge.
All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge in
Him.
Verse 6.
As therefore ye received Christ Jesus the Lord,
so walk in Him.
Now that's interesting.
It doesn't say just with Him.
In Him.
So walk in Him.
As you received Christ Jesus the Lord.
You received Christ Jesus the Lord by grace,
through faith.
So you must walk in Him.
Every further step.
You take that step by grace, through faith.
And then you experience more of the Lord.
You grow in the Lord.
You progress in the Lord.
You journey on.
You come nearer to the goal, to the
crown, to the reward.
Let me still go on.
Verse 9.
For in Him dwells all the fullness of
the Godhead bodily.
And in Him you are made full.
Then it says, In whom ye were circumcised
with a circumcision not made with hands.
I don't know whether this is too much
for you in these unusual circumstances.
But all I wanted you to see this
evening is, here is something extraordinary.
Everything is in Him.
The Colossian Church was subject to certain teachings.
That there were other things other than the
Lord Jesus.
Angels, principalities, powers.
That needed to be given a place.
And had a very special authority over the
church and over the believers.
And Paul was seeking by the Spirit of
God to point out that in Christ is
everything.
It is all in Christ.
Now if you take another little word, it
may bring it even more home to you.
For then we have, from now on, from
this chapter 2, we have with Him, listen
to this.
Chapter 2 and verse 12.
Having been buried with Him in baptism wherein
ye were also raised with Him through faith
in the working of God who raised Him
from the dead.
And then again in verse 13.
And you being dead to your trespasses and
the uncircumcision of your flesh, you, I say,
did He make alive together with Him having
forgiven us all our trespasses.
It is amazing.
We have been made alive together with Him.
The most wonderful thing about a child of
God is that they are alive to God.
They have been made alive together with the
Lord Jesus.
The very power of His resurrection.
Isn't this amazing?
Buried with Him.
Raised with Him.
It is the key to everything.
You go on.
Verse 20.
If ye died with Christ from the rudiments
of the world, why as though living in
the world do you subject yourselves to ordinances?
Handle not, taste not, touch not, all which
things are to perish with the using.
Chapter 3, verse 1.
If ye then were raised together with Christ,
seek the things that are above where Christ
is seated on the right hand of God.
Verse 3.
For ye died, and your life is hid
with Christ in God.
When Christ who is our life shall be
manifested, then shall ye also with Him be
manifested in glory.
Now, I have only just gone through a
few things.
I could take a number of other things
as well in this Colossian letter.
But this is enough at least for you
to see that everything is to do with
the Lord Jesus.
There is no Christian life apart from Him.
There is no experience of God apart from
Him.
There is no church apart from Him.
There is no fellowship apart from Him.
It is all related to the Lord Jesus.
He is the center and the circumference of
it all.
How wonderful that is.
I won't spend too much time more on
this.
I want to go on to another point.
But just wait.
I find it one of the most exciting
and thrilling things in the world to recognize
the centrality of the Lord Jesus to everything.
He is the center and the circumference.
Think of your Bible.
I know the first time I ever read
the Bible properly, I had never read it
when I was a child.
When I was 12 years or 13 years
of age, I had never read the Bible.
And when I first read the Bible, the
thing that came home to me was Jesus.
The Lord Jesus is central to the whole
Bible.
From Genesis 2 onwards all the way through,
you find He is there in time, in
picture, in all kinds of things.
For instance, take the fivefold offerings.
The sin offering, the trespass offering, the burnt
offering, the peace offering.
It is amazing to me that the Lord
Jesus is every one of these, covering every
aspect of our lives.
When I think of the Lamb of God
in the Passover and the amazing exodus of
the people of God, how incredible it is
that that Lamb of God, you follow Him
all the way through the Bible.
It doesn't matter where you turn, you will
find the Lord Jesus on every page, not
just in your New Testament.
You will find Him everywhere in your Old
Testament.
When you come to the New Testament, He
occupies most obviously the central place.
And when you come to the book that
sums up everything, it is the Lamb in
the throne, the little Lamb in the throne,
the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the
Root of David, the little Lamb in the
throne that has obtained everything for the Father.
He has taken the Testament, as we spoke
last night, the will of God, and He
has fulfilled it, the eternal purpose of God
which He realized in Himself.
Beloved brothers and sisters, it doesn't matter where
you turn.
Take Psalm 22.
We know that this 22nd Psalm was written
by David, if we believe the little title.
I believe that is as inspired as the
Psalm which I do.
If it was written by David, then it
is incredible.
My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken
me?
And as we look through that 22nd Psalm,
it stuns us that here we have a
picture not of someone watching someone being crucified
on a gibbet, on a tree, but we
actually see the whole scene through the eyes
of the person on the tree, nailed to
the tree.
How do you explain such a thing?
It is the Lord Jesus.
There is no other explanation.
We have the whole history of David, and
nowhere were his hands and his feet pierced.
Nowhere was his side pierced.
It is amazing when you read that Psalm,
or I think of Isaiah 53, the greatest
exposition of the finished work of the Messiah
in the whole Bible, including, in my estimation,
the letter to the Romans.
Here you have something so profound, so incredible.
He was wounded for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon Him,
and with His stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray.
We have turned every one to his own
way, and the Lord hath caused to dwell
on Him, to gather on Him, the iniquity
of us all.
Oh, what a revelation!
Everywhere you turn, the Lord Jesus, central to
the Bible, from beginning to end.
I am not demoting the Father, and I
am not demoting the Holy Spirit, but it
is the Lord Jesus, that upon which the
whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is focused.
But if you turn to the natural creation,
He is central to the whole natural creation.
How can it say, in Him all things
were created?
He is before all things, and in Him
all things hold together.
That means He is central to this universe.
No matter what scientists say, it is the
Lord Jesus that is central to this whole
universe, and its life, its well-being, everything
to do with it.
He is central, most obviously, to redemption and
salvation.
He is the Redeemer.
It is His finished work on the cross
that has not only brought us sinners, alienated
from God to Him, and brought us back
into His original, eternal purpose, but it is
this same finished work that one day will
touch the whole natural creation, so that the
natural creation itself will be redeemed by His
finished work, from this bondage to this cycle
of corruption.
Brothers and sisters, it is a tremendous theme,
this theme.
The church does lie at the heart of
it all, of this new creation, this new
heaven, and this new earth.
But, my dear friends, there is a new
heaven and a new earth.
There is a new creation.
One day it is coming.
We have no idea what God is going
to do, except He is preparing a government.
He is preparing a city.
He is preparing a bride.
It has something to do with the whole
universe, and what we are going to do,
we have no idea.
But, dear friends, the Lord Jesus is central
to this whole thing.
He is center and circumference.
This poor old natural creation was created through
Him and for Him.
And when God created man, He told us
to multiply and keep and tend the earth.
What a mess we are making of it.
Pollution on every single level.
No matter where you turn, one of these
days the Lord Jesus will reverse the whole
thing.
And the lion and the lamb will lie
down together.
And the ox and the kid will eat
straw and lie down with one another.
And a child will play with a cobra
or with a viper.
Play games like a little child would with
a puppy.
It is an amazing picture we have in
Isaiah 11 that ends with, And the knowledge
of the glory of God shall cover the
earth as the waters cover the sea.
This whole natural creation aches, aches with pain,
in agony.
If you and I could only hear it.
We would hear the pain of this natural
creation subjected to futility.
Waiting for the children of God to come
into their divinely appointed place.
But where are their believers who are growing?
Where are the believers who are coming to
full growth so that the natural creation itself
can be liberated?
Oh, most people seem to think all we
need is to be the church.
Brothers and sisters, the church itself is a
means of God to an end.
It is the heart of everything.
It is the bride of the Lamb.
Could there be anything more central to the
bridegroom than the bride?
Could there be anything more precious to the
bridegroom than the bride?
But beloved brothers and sisters, this bride is
brought to the bridegroom and married in that
marvelous wedding ceremony that will take place.
And then, and then, God will finally get
on with the job.
Oh, the Lord Jesus is the center of
circumference to it all.
If I take this question of the church,
do I need to say any more?
Stephen will say I'm quite sure more on
this vital subject.
But the Lord Jesus is central to it.
God preserve us from gathering around church truth.
It has been my displeasure through my life
to have to come to many a group,
dusty, heavy, legalistic, in a straitjacket.
No one ever gets saved there.
Nothing ever happens there.
No, very little life, very little joy, gathered
somehow or other on some kind of church
doctrine.
We were never meant.
That's not the church.
The church is a living relationship to the
Lord Jesus.
It is a question of His being head
so that the body functions.
The head can express itself to the body.
It doesn't matter how few believers there are
in any place.
When they're in living union with the Lord
Jesus, there is an expression of the Lord
Jesus.
There is something of the beauty of the
Lord our God that comes upon people.
There is something that is somehow or other.
It affects and influences people.
Dear brothers and sisters, the Lord Jesus is
the center of the church.
This is where the apostle Paul, by the
Spirit of God, said that in all things
He might have the preeminence.
Well, I can't say.
I mean, we could stay here all night
under these conditions while you're cooking.
And so am I.
But the fact of the matter is that
it is wonderful.
Can you please put your hand up at
the back there when you can't hear me,
and I will try to raise my voice.
It doesn't matter if I lose my voice
tomorrow because I'm not speaking.
The Lord Jesus is central to glory.
Central to glory.
Central to this new creation that is coming.
Christ in you.
The hope of.
I hope that these few words about the
Lord Jesus in this way will bring something
home to you.
When I spoke about the all-inclusiveness of
Christ, I mean, listen to it.
It pleased the Father that in Him should
all the fullness dwell.
Not just a little fullness.
Not some fullness.
Not just fullness.
But all the fullness.
Listen again.
In Him dwells all the fullness of God
in bodily form.
That seems to me to be all-inclusive.
I think of the statement of our Lord
Jesus in Revelation 21, and verse 6, I
am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning
and the end.
And then He says it again in chapter
22 and verse 13.
Of course this was not written in chapters
and verses.
So we have a repetition of something.
And it's always important when the Lord Jesus
repeats something.
And this time He says, I am the
Alpha and Omega, the first and the last,
the beginning and the end.
There couldn't be anything more all-inclusive than
that.
He is the first.
He is the last.
And He is everything in between.
He is...
Well, think of it.
Where are you?
Are you in Christ?
It doesn't matter if there are millions and
millions of believers.
Every one of them is in Christ.
He is the first.
He is the last.
And everything in between.
Every one of those millions of those innumerable
multitudes of believers are in Christ and Christ
is in them.
He is first and last and everything in
between.
He is the beginning and the end.
The devil's great purpose is always to bring
things into the work of God and into
the life of the church and into the
life of the believer that do not have
their origin in the Lord.
If He is not the beginning, you cannot
come to the divine end.
If it is something that has its origin
somewhere else, it will surely divert you, whether
it is a person, or an individual, or
whether it is the church, or whether it
is the work of the Lord.
It is very important that our beginnings are
all with the Lord.
When the Lord begins something, there is the
grace of God for it to continue and
reach the divine goal.
There is the power of the Holy Spirit
to overcome every obstacle and take us through
every problem and bring us finally to the
divine end.
It is so important to make sure that
our beginnings are God's beginnings.
They begin with Christ.
And then I think of Alpha and Omega.
Of course, I suppose for many people, such
a statement might not always mean very much.
If we put it another way, and put
it like this.
I am the A and the Z.
Now, of course, you don't say Z.
I mean, the Lord did such a good
job when He divided us on language.
When my first visit ever to the United
States, it said on the New York Times,
a little heading, English is the language that
divides the United Kingdom from the United States.
You don't say Z.
You say Z.
And we could put it this way.
The Lord Jesus said, I am A and
Z.
Well, now, you can't make many words with
A and Z.
Can you make even one word?
As?
I've noted it this way.
That's A-S, not A-Z.
How do you make any words?
Why did Jesus say, I'm Alpha and Omega?
Unless He was saying, I'm the language of
God.
I'm not only the Word of God.
I'm not only the mind of God.
And the heart of God revealed, I am
the language of God.
He didn't mean, I am A and Z
only.
He meant, I am A, B, C, D,
E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L,
M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T.
At least English, English, English, and American English
has the same alphabet.
You have all those letters, and it doesn't
matter what word it is.
From those marvelous letters, it can be formed.
God has made our Lord Jesus His language.
He is the language of God.
He is the way He speaks to us.
He is the way He communicates with us.
It is wonderful, the all-inclusiveness of Christ.
And then there is one other little word
that I am very fond of.
You will find it in Revelation chapter 3
and verse 14.
And wonderfully, it was a title the Lord
Jesus used of Himself when speaking to the
seventh church, the Laodicean church, that comfortable, affluent,
proud church that believed that it was rich
and it had understanding of all the mysteries
and had all faith and everything else and
was in fact naked and blind and poor
and miserable, the Lord Jesus said.
That church had no idea that its head
and Savior was outside of the church.
And I am not talking about something institutional.
I am not talking about something that had
long since died.
I am talking about a New Testament church
of born-again believers.
The Lord Jesus was outside.
It is almost plaintive to hear His voice.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock,
if any man, not if you will hear
My voice, but if any one of you
hears My voice, what a plaintive cry from
the head and Savior of the body, outside
of His own church, shut out.
They were having the Lord's table.
They were having Bible studies.
They were having prayer meetings.
They had their evangelistic routine.
They had everything.
Yet, the Savior and head of the church
was outside of it.
And nobody could hear His voice.
He was knocking on the door saying, If
anyone, any man, hear My voice and open
the door, I will come in and will
sup with him.
And He, with me, Aha!
You've got it, He said, and sup with
him.
And He, with me.
The church was so busy, nobody supped with
Him.
It is relationship to the Lord Jesus.
Did you hear that?
Relationship to the Lord Jesus.
Somehow or other, that relationship had gone into
deep freeze.
Well, the Lord Jesus actually called it lukewarm.
Now listen to what He says.
He says, I am the Amen, the faithful
and true witness.
What an amazing way to speak to a
church that He was outside of.
He says, I am the Amen.
I am the one who will see through
the fulfillment of the purpose of God.
No matter what happens.
Oh, brothers and sisters, how important it is.
The Lord never said, come out from them,
get rid of them, somehow start something new.
He said, I am the Amen.
I am the Amen.
He that overcometh shall sit down with me
in my throne, even as I also overcame
and sat down with my Father in His
throne.
All this speaks to me of an all
-inclusive Christ.
Amen is a Hebrew word.
And it comes from the same root that
we get the word to believe or to
have faith.
If I say, I believe, my Amen.
Amen.
When you say, Amen, you are saying, I
have faith for that.
I believe that.
That is right.
Even so.
Very simple.
Amen.
The Lord Jesus is the even soul to
the will of God.
The Lord Jesus is, it shall be done.
The voice of the Son to the Father.
It is for me wonderful to speak of
this all-inclusiveness of the Lord Jesus.
Brothers and sisters, think for a moment.
I don't know if you are finding it
too much this evening in the heat, but
you are at least sitting there and I
am working.
Think again.
In Him dwells all the fullness of the
Godhead bodily.
Or as the older version put it, in
bodily form.
And in Him you are made full or
made complete.
How can that be possible?
Think for a moment.
Think.
Think of the attributes of God.
Just think for a moment.
The omnipotence of God.
Almighty power.
The omnipotence of God.
The sovereignty of God.
Think of it.
Think of the, am I dazzling you with
these wonderful words, omnipresence of God everywhere at
the same time.
I think it is amazing that people this
night in the middle of the night in
mainland China may be speaking to the Lord.
And you and I are here sitting in
the presence of the Lord.
And somewhere else I suppose in Hawaii they
haven't even got to the evening yet.
I think it is amazing to me that
God is everywhere at the same time.
We tend to think Satan is everywhere at
the same time.
It is a lie.
He can only be in one place at
one time.
Thank God for that.
When he is visiting you, he can't be
visiting me.
I mean we tend to think of Satan
as uncreated, omnipresent.
He is not omnipresent.
He has a whole great intelligence service of
demonic spirits.
They are everywhere.
He collects all the information but he can
only be in one place at one time.
Thank God for that.
But the Father, our Heavenly Father, He is
everywhere at the same time.
It is amazing to me.
Then think of this.
He is omniscient.
That means He knows everything.
There is not a thing He doesn't know.
I mean we have computers where we can
store all kinds of things.
But the mind of God, I don't know
how to put it.
Everything is there.
All the knowledge, all, everything.
Do you mean to tell me that the
fullness of an omnipotent God, all the fullness
of an omnipotent God dwells in the Lord
Jesus?
All the omnipresence of an omnipresent God, all
the fullness of an omnipresent God dwells in
the Lord Jesus?
All the fullness of the omniscience of God
dwells in the Lord Jesus?
It is unbelievable to me to even think
about it.
Let me add a few more things.
Let me add this.
God is called the Eternal God.
God is called the Living God.
God is called the Unchangeable God.
I remember an old missionary, a marvelous old
gentleman.
I thank God every time I think of
him now in the presence of the Lord.
Willie Burton, what an amazing man.
He carried the Gospel to the cannibals of
southern Congo and was responsible for the Gospel
spreading through the whole of the tribes of
southern Congo.
When he came to them, they were all
cannibals, savages.
An amazing man.
And I remember one day he said to
me, Have you ever thought of the word,
demutability?
This man had seen so many miracles, so
many miracles.
Unbelievable.
That was the way God got into these
cannibals.
But I must not stop to tell you
these stories, fantastic as they are, that that
was the way he broke in to these
tribes because the Lord so arranged it that
there was always something impossible that was taking
place and then he would come in on
the scene and God would step in to
the whole thing.
And then one after the other they came
to the Lord.
But I used to look at this man,
a very ordinary man in many ways, a
very artistic man.
His paintings are still found in the National
Art Gallery in Cape Town in South Africa.
Some of the most beautiful paintings of the
rainforest that I have ever seen.
But now this dear man, he said to
me, Have you ever thought of the word,
immutability?
Have you ever thought, he said to me,
that you cannot break that word down?
You cannot explain it.
You have to explain it in whole sentences.
Immutability, he said.
Because it means God doesn't change.
The immutability of his counsel, it is rooted,
he said, in himself.
And suddenly I saw that was the basis
of his ministry.
He knew that Jesus was the same yesterday,
today and forever.
Unchangeable, unchanging, the Eternal, the Living God.
I can add a whole lot of other
things.
He was the Holy One, the Most High,
beloved brothers and sisters.
Nothing is too difficult for God.
Nothing.
Why he sometimes leaves us in the condition
that we are, I don't know.
It is a good question.
I ask it often myself.
Why doesn't he step in straight away and
deliver us straight away?
Sometimes he does.
Oh, it is so wonderful when the Lord
steps in with healing.
And there are other times when we live
by grace.
I remember some years ago three sisters, all
of them wonderful servants of God in Israel.
And they all three got breast cancer.
Oh, how we prayed for them.
How we prayed for their healing.
The first one to go was Ria Scherb.
She was so wonderful.
Three wonderful children.
Her testimony was such that so many have
found the Lord through her.
The second to go was even more remarkable
woman.
She was an Arab.
We did wonderful for her.
The third was a sister who worked amongst
the Muslims.
In the old city of Jerusalem.
What a work she did.
Known throughout the old city.
She didn't die.
She went straight on with her work.
Sixteen, seventeen years later, I was speaking in
Holland.
And there was a crowd nearly the size
of this packed into the hall.
And as I sat on the platform, I
saw one face that was radiant.
Absolutely radiant.
And I thought, what is that?
Is that a light shining on that person
over there?
And I have quite good sight.
So I looked and suddenly I saw it
was this sister.
I didn't even know she was back in
Holland at that time.
She was back from a visit.
So straight afterwards I went up to her
and I said, My dear sister, I saw
you in the midst of all these folks.
I saw a radiance in you.
What has happened?
I said.
We pray for you almost daily.
And she said, The Lord has not healed
me, but I am living by grace.
And then she said, I wouldn't exchange my
experience of Him and of His grace for
anything in the world.
And I said, To look at you, I
know you are right.
She was radiant.
Oh, what a wonderful thing it is when
the very glory of God shines through a
human being.
I used to wonder why in those old
pictures, those religious pictures, they always put a
circle of light round people.
But I have come to see two or
three people in my life who had that
incredible radiance already in them before they died.
Maria Monson was one.
Dalma Svelma was another.
And this dear sister, I will not mention
her name.
She would not be very happy with me
if I did.
Is the third.
She has not gone to the Lord.
She is still very much alive.
Still functioning and doing all her work.
But what a wonderful thing it is.
Nothing is too difficult for the Lord.
Nothing is too hard for the Lord.
Nothing is impossible with the Lord.
He can do anything.
Anything.
He can turn the whole of the United
States upside down and inside out.
I rather feel He has done this last
year.
But that is what He can do.
There is nothing that God is not able
to do.
And all this fullness dwells in the Lord
Jesus in bodily form.
Well, I must begin to come to an
end.
All this fullness of God in Christ is
available to the church.
And all this fullness of God in Christ
is available to the individual believer.
Isn't that amazing?
I don't know who you are.
I don't know what your circumstances are.
I only know this.
This fullness can be yours.
Fullness of grace.
Grace sufficient.
Fullness of power that will take you through
any problem.
Fullness of love that will enable you to
lay down your life and serve others.
Fullness of wisdom.
All of this is yours in the Lord
Jesus.
There is something very wonderful when a few
very ordinary people get saved, adjoined to the
Lord, and become filled with Him.
We always feel ourselves to be nothing but
others.
When they touch us, they touch the Lord.
There is something very precious about that.
So, dear friends, all I want to do
this evening is to point out to you
that the Lord Jesus is the fullness of
God.
Let me use an illustration I've used before
in these conferences and elsewhere, but I don't
know a better one really.
If you were to go down to Virginia
Beach and sit on the beach there, you
see the Atlantic and you have a bucket,
and you go in and you scoop up
water in your bucket, you can say to
me, my bucket is full.
And you can actually say to me, I've
got the Atlantic in my bucket.
And I would say to you, just wait,
I'm not sure that you've got the whole
Atlantic in that bucket.
I think you have one bucket full of
the Atlantic.
Now, if you come from the other side,
of course, it's the Pacific.
And maybe there are others here that have
something to do with the South China Sea
or whatever else.
But you've scooped up one bucket full.
But listen, many a believer says to me,
I am filled with the Holy Spirit.
Well, that's wonderful.
I'm glad to hear it.
I don't call that a genuine baptism of
the Spirit.
When you're full of the Holy Spirit, your
little capacity, thank God, is full of the
Holy Spirit.
But when the Holy Spirit gets you, that
is an immersion into the Spirit of God.
Now, if you take that bucket of yours
and you throw it out into the Atlantic,
a wave comes and half fills it, another
wave comes and it's two-thirds full, and
another wave comes and the whole bucket is
taken, and it's swallowed up in the Atlantic.
Now, it is filled to all the fullness
of the Atlantic.
This is what it means in Ephesians when
it speaks of us being filled unto all
the fullness of God.
How can a little person like me be
filled unto all the fullness of God?
It sounds almost blasphemous to even mention it,
to even say it.
But the fact is this, that when the
Lord's got hold of me, and I am
immersed in that fullness which is in the
Lord Jesus by the Holy Spirit, I am
filled unto all the fullness of God.
I have been introduced to something infinitely greater
than me.
There is one little phrase here, and with
this I end, that we read earlier in
Colossians 1 and verse 18, that in all
things He might have the preeminence.
It is very interesting that whenever the Lord
Jesus is enthroned, tremendous things happen, whether it's
in one single life, or whether it's in
a company of believers, or whether it is
something that happens in the whole great move
of the Spirit of God.
But when people enthrone the Lord Jesus, when
they give Him the place God the Father
has given Him, something always happens.
Now if you look at the history of
the church, it is amazing, because every single
great move of the Holy Spirit in its
beginnings, in the first decade or two, normally
the first generation, you find first of all,
it is the Word of God that is
discovered.
It doesn't matter where you turn, what name
has been given to it, all through church
history, it is the Word of God that
is discovered.
And people are obedient to the Word of
God.
And in so far as they continue to
be obedient to the Word of God, that
renewing and reviving and awakening continues.
There is an amazing experience of the Lord
Jesus' head.
Not just one person, but a whole number
of people.
It doesn't matter where you turn, you will
find it in the beginnings of every great
movement of the Spirit of God.
Whether it is the Reformation, or whether it
is the Anabaptists, or whether it is the
Puritans and Covenanters, or whether it is the
Quakers, or whether it is the Moravians, or
whether it is the Methodists, or whether it
is the Brethren, it doesn't matter wherever you
turn, or you will find the same thing.
That a whole group of men and women
find the Lord Jesus' head.
They enthrone Him.
And there is a recognition of the work,
a person, and the work of the Holy
Spirit.
Then there is a fellowship.
You will find that in the beginnings of
every one of these great movements, there is
no exclusion.
It is a question of, are you born
of God?
Do you belong to the Lord Jesus?
Then everybody is together.
They didn't call themselves Methodists, others called themselves
Methodists.
They didn't call themselves Quakers, others called them
Quakers.
They didn't call themselves Puritans, others called them
Puritans.
And so we can go on.
It is amazing to see the similarity in
every great move of the Holy Spirit right
through the history of the Church.
It is always the same.
But the moment the Lord Jesus is dethroned,
departure begins.
And then the hierarchy takes over.
And then institutionalism comes in.
And then traditionalism.
And then before long, the power and life
has gone.
And the Lord does it all over again.
Isn't that interesting?
That in all things He might have the
preeminence.
Oh, to give the Lord Jesus the place
the Father has given Him.
But it is true of your life as
well, as an individual.
Do you know that it is very, very
simple?
I don't know if this comes to some
of you as a challenge.
You know in your life that God is
speaking to you about something.
And you think that something He is speaking
to you about is not very important.
But He is telling you to give up
something.
Or telling you to terminate a relationship.
Or telling you to go somewhere.
Or telling you to lay down your life.
And you sort of feel, well, what does
He mean, lay down my life?
I am already laying down my life.
Why should I do this or go there
or whatever else?
You have no idea what hinges on your
obedience.
One simple act of obedience, which you can
argue about and say is not important, is
not a huge matter.
But to God, that thing He is speaking
to you about will either be departure from
Him, lukewarmness developing, or a gateway into a
new dimension of spiritual experience and spiritual life.
I remember when the Lord spoke to me
many years ago about giving up films.
I loved films.
Now you don't call them films, you call
them movies.
Yes, I will.
I just remember that I loved those Charlie
Chaplin films and all that type of thing.
I was only a kid.
I was only 13 when I was saved.
But when that happened, I can only tell
you one thing.
The Lord spoke to me about giving it
up.
And I had such a battle about it.
I couldn't think what was really wrong about
it.
But I did.
For years.
That was a gateway into new and deep
spiritual experience of the Lord.
It is always the same.
Don't argue with the Lord.
Let Him really do something in your life.
If He is speaking to you about something,
surrender to Him.
You will never, ever regret it.
Shall we pray?
Beloved Lord, we thank You that You have
helped us this evening in these circumstances.
We commit ourselves now to You, Lord.
We pray that in some very real way,
You will take what has been said this
night and You will get it into our
hearts.
Many of us know these things, but Lord,
we pray, bring it to us as a
challenge, Lord.
We need to live in Your fullness.
We need to experience Your fullness.
We need to express Your fullness, Lord.
If every assembly represented in this place was
filled with the Lord Jesus, oh, what would
happen?
Nothing would be impossible.
Lord, help us, we pray.
If every one of our lives were filled
with Yourself, if we were filled, overflowing with
the Holy Spirit, what a change would take
place.
Not always, Lord, would our circumstances change, but
people around us would be brought to know
You.
All kinds of things would happen.
Oh, beloved Lord, we give ourselves to You
this night.
And if, dear Lord, there is something that
some of us are hanging on to, we
are arguing that it doesn't really mean much.
Lord, we pray that You will give us
the grace this night to let that thing
go, to surrender it to You.
And we ask it in the name of
our Lord Jesus.
Amen.