Well, I'm grateful to have made it through
these first two sessions.
I look forward to this conclusion.
And it's something that I've never before spoken.
It's a mystery.
And I pray that you're sufficiently alert to
consider it and to receive it.
I'm really taken up by it.
It's remarkable.
I just want to proceed it by some
references to martyrdom and then I'll go into
it.
And then depending on the time and the
disposition and how the Lord will lead us,
you still have a need to ask some
questions.
We could conclude with some questions and answers.
But it may be that some of your
questions will be answered in this final session
or the Lord just wants you to take
them home.
Ponder them yourself and search the Scripture yourself.
So I just ask you to be led
of the Spirit and not just automatically want
to divest yourself of a curiosity.
We have to learn to bear the burden
of unanswered questions and to receive the answer
in the time and the way that the
Lord often wants to give it and not
just at the convenience of the place where
the question has arisen.
So let's be real sensitive how we shall
move with the Lord in the conclusion of
this last session.
So let's pray together.
Precious God, we're grateful.
We can see that we have been led
by the Most High.
This has been an unfolding of your mind.
Who has been your counselor?
Who has known the mind of the Lord?
And what shall we say, Lord, for what
I sense is before us now in a
mystery of something that you want to express.
And in that you have been so faithful
to bring us this far, bring us all
the way through in these immediate days.
We just want to acknowledge, Lord, that we
count ourselves as privileged to have been, my
God, in the place of hearing, in the
place of dealing, in the place of transaction,
in the place of apostolic and kingdom call.
Come now, my God, as you are the
Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the
end, bring now the conclusion to what you
have begun.
Seal it.
Let it be perfect.
Let it be, my God, the piece of
history that we have asked of you.
Be with me now, Lord, to move through
this material in the way that it shall
please you by your Spirit.
Give us hearing ears again, I pray, and
we'll thank you and praise you for all
of your goodness to us, the richness of
the counsel of God.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
Someone has written that for anyone to proclaim
the absolute kingship of Christ and the necessary
exercise of dominion by Christians in terms of
God's law is to declare war on the
world and to incur its wrath and hostility.
I want to say that if we have
or are taking seriously what God is speaking
to us, in these immediate days we will
put ourselves on a collision course for suffering.
So long as we're content to play some
lesser kind of game, this will not be
any threat or risk.
But the moment that our intent is serious
to see a kingdom realized and the righteousness
and the law of God made known to
men and the warning of an imminent judgment,
you can be assured that reproach and persecution,
suffering, if not martyrdom, will be our portion.
And I'd like to make this a complete
topic, and I regret that we don't have
the time for it in itself, but I
just will throw it out to you to
consider.
And I think I made a passing reference
in the beginning.
Martyrdom is God's normative intention for every saint.
It's not the experience of the few.
It's not some kind of, what shall I
say, minority experience for those who didn't play
their cards right or those who had some
particular election in God to suffer.
You shall be witnesses unto me.
The Greek word is martyria.
You shall be martyrs unto me.
True witness is martyrdom.
And I don't believe that we're living truly
unless we're prepared to die truly.
One of the reasons why we're not living
truly is because we have no anticipation of
a martyr's death and therefore we have not
seen to a martyr's preparation.
The issue is not so much as whether
our lives are going to ultimately be required
of us, but that we ought to live
in the anticipation that they will.
And I believe that this is true apostolic
expectation, and of course it is absent from
the church.
It won't be if we take God seriously.
Nothing has changed.
The world is still at enmity with God.
We will not have this man to rule
over us.
It is still the world's mindset.
Man wants to exercise his own dominion and
is happy with any man who diminishes or
denies the kingship of Christ.
But he must reign till he has put
all enemies under his feet.
And so the issue is joined, and there
are going to be sparks and increasing conflict
and collision.
I don't have time and I've got the
material with me, but not the time to
read it.
Of the last epistle of Jacob Hutter, the
founder of the Hutterites, one of the Anabaptist
streams of men who suffered this kind of
persecution and martyrdom.
And when you read the swelling apostolic phrases
of that literature, you see that they saw
that martyrdom was the logic of their faith.
It was the inevitable conclusion to which their
faith would bring them, and they anticipated it
with joy.
It was not some kind of dread anticipation,
but a joyous climax.
So something is grievously wrong.
Either they were weirdos who had a very
peculiar mindset, or we ourselves are out of
tune with God.
But I don't have the time to read
those things, but only to say that they
saw the collision of kingdoms, they saw that
their position would lead unavoidably to suffering and
tribulation and finally to martyrdom, but it could
not be otherwise.
And that this kind of suffering and death
was not only not an argument against God's
grace, but the actual proof that they were
true disciples and on the right path.
And these are just brief references, but in
two examples that are given us in scripture,
there's a kind of revelation that I want
to bring to your attention, though I can't
do it full justice.
One is in the crucifixion, the suffering and
the death of Jesus, in that something is
revealed in his martyr death, if I can
use that phrase.
I came up with a definition of martyrdom.
It's adversity meekly suffered.
See, Paul preached Christ and him crucified.
And his crucifixion and death, though it was
suffered alongside the death of a criminal, was
other than that criminal's death.
It was Christ and him crucified.
Which is to say, he did not die
bawling.
He didn't die screeching.
He didn't clench his fist at the authorities.
He didn't spit out curses at those who
were judging him, and crying out, come down
from the cross and we'll believe you.
He died with such a magnanimity.
He displayed in his death what God actually
is in his nature.
See, suffering reveals.
Even the world knows it, but we've forgotten
it.
And the great schools of acting always knew
that if you want to be a great
actor, you've got to suffer.
Why?
Because suffering reveals.
Adversity brings something into the pit and the
marrow of the being of man, where he
really lives.
It strips the veneer, it takes away the
things that are external, and brings you face
to face with the things that are ultimately
real.
That's the nature of suffering.
So what we reveal in suffering is what
we really are.
And if we're going to bawl and scrawl
and cry out, why me?
It's not going to be the revelation of
the nature of God and the meekness of
God that had such a powerful effect when
it was demonstrated by Jesus on the cross
that some dumb Gentile clod, a centurion who
was schooled in professional murder, and had nailed
up any number of men, and watched them
squirm in anguish on the cross, when he
beheld the way that Jesus died, he cried
out, truly, this is the Son of God.
Something was forced as revelation in his Gentile
consciousness that somehow was denied Jews who were
anticipating the Son of God.
That was revealed in the suffering and the
death of Jesus on the cross.
The same kind of thing in kind is
revealed also in the death of the first
martyr, Stephen, in the book of Acts, in
the seventh chapter.
And I'm a believer that the great principles
of God are most cogently expressed in their
first reference in Scripture.
You want to know what the true church
is?
See the first expression in Scripture.
You want to know what martyrdom is?
Read about the first martyr.
There is something here that is universal, eternal
in its principles.
In a man who died in the way
that he did, whose death was the consequence
of his bold speaking and witness without compromise,
because he did not choose his own words,
but because his life was given to another,
he spoke the words that were given, and
it brought him to a collision course, and
to a martyr's death.
But he being full of the Holy Spirit,
Acts 7.55, gazed intently into heaven, and
saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing
at the right hand of God.
And he said, Behold, I see the heavens
opened up, and the Son of Man standing
at the right hand of God.
For me, this is not just a statement
of a man in his last moments of
extremity.
It's the statement of the man in all
his moments.
Because his dying did not exceed his living.
Because he was full of the Holy Spirit,
he gazed intently up into heaven.
That should not be our posture in our
death.
It should be our posture in our life.
And if it is not characteristically and consistently
our attitude of seeing as we live, it
will not be our attitude of seeing as
we die.
Our dying shall not exceed our living, and
our living shall not exceed our dying.
We need to be so full of the
Holy Spirit that we see the heavens opened.
That in fact, our dying opens the heavens.
And this they could not stand to hear.
They cried out with a loud voice, and
they gnashed upon him with their teeth, and
they crushed him with stones.
One at a time, sinking into his flesh.
You know what we feel like when our
toe is stubbed by another.
But how about dying by inches, a stone
at a time.
Experiencing the crunch and the thud in our
own flesh, and the trickle of blood that
goes into our own mouths and eyes.
And looking at the rage and the angry
faces of those who are throwing death at
us.
What will be our final reaction?
Will we curse them?
Will we bite our lips to hold back
the venomous scream, the desire for vengeance?
Or will we say with Stephen, who called
upon the Lord to receive his spirit, and
cried out in his final breath, Lord do
not hold this sin against them.
And having said this, he fell asleep.
You see, it took a great death to
bring about the conversion of a great apostle.
And I believe that it was the witness
to this death that set the stage for
the conversion of the apostle Paul, who could
not kick against this brick.
Because he saw a busboy die more magnificently
than he was ever able to live as
a Pharisee.
He saw something in the revelation of the
death of a man who was ordinary and
had no theological or academic distinction.
He was a waiter on tables.
Dying more gloriously than he was able to
live for all of his Talmudic and religious
knowledge.
Till he came to such a point that
he couldn't stand it any longer.
It broke him.
It took the death of one to bring
the life of another.
It took a great death to birth a
great life.
And I think that in these things we
have a foretaste of what is our final
destiny and our mission as witnesses unto him.
It's going to be our suffering and what
we reveal in our suffering as final witness
to the dumb clouds who are going to
watch our crucifixion.
That they might cry out in seeing us
truly.
These are the sons of God.
Are you preparing to die magnificently?
And to rejoice for the privilege?
Do you understand Paul when he speaks about
the crown that awaits him?
Or is it for us just some kind
of idle biblical metaphor that has no really
cogent practical meaning?
Do we count our present afflictions as momentary
and light?
Because we see the things that are invisible
and eternal?
We need to come into this kind of
mindset, this kind of apostolic frame of thinking
and seeing because we are on a collision
course for martyrdom.
Now that's a whole subject in itself but
I don't want to say anything more about
it.
I don't have much with you to contemplate
and to pursue and bring further.
And I want to come to the real
substance of my concluding talk around one scripture
and it's a mystery and it's in Ephesians
the third chapter.
Paul talks in the ninth verse about making
all men see what is the fellowship of
the mystery which was from the beginning which
from the beginning of the world has been
hidden God who created all things by Jesus
Christ to the intent that now unto the
principalities and powers in heavenly places might be
known by the church the manifold wisdom of
God according to the eternal purpose which he
purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I want to say that the issue of
martyrdom and the issue of suffering is more
than the issue of our overcoming.
There's something larger, far more cosmic and eternal
and that is the fulfillment of Ephesians 3
.10 that through the church the manifold wisdom
of God is to be demonstrated to the
principalities and the powers.
Now this is going to be for you
a complete mystery and you'll look blank unless
you have some cogent sense of what the
principalities and the powers and the rulers of
darkness are.
And yet it's not surprising that there's very
little comprehension of what that refers to in
the understanding of most Christians One writer, William
Stringfellow says this about principalities and powers Americans,
including professed Christians who have biblical grounds to
be wiser remain it seems remain it seems
astonishingly obtuse about these powers.
They seldom impute to them personality or integrity
as creatures and commonly deem institutions and similar
principalities as subject to human sponsorships, patronage and
control.
Yet to be ignorant or gullible or ingenuous
about the demons to underestimate the inherent capacities
of the principalities to fail to notice the
autonomy of these powers as creatures are best
their usurpation of human life and their domination
of human beings.
Just to put this into common English what
he's saying is that far more than we
have ever recognized there is a play upon
institutions in the world through a spirit realm
called principalities and powers that influences them far
beyond any dimension that we have suspected that
there's no way that we can even understand
what is happening institutionally and in our culture
if we do not reckon on the operation
of the principalities and powers of the air
that influence and adhere in the institutions of
the world.
And that if we just address ourselves to
the institutions we are naive we don't recognize
behind them the sinister forces which are at
play within them.
I'm coming to this kind of increasing comprehension
of the principalities and the powers as they
influence institutions especially academic institutions because I've had
a little experience in them and as I
go on in the faith I'm increasingly smarting
or sensing the satanic influence and content even
in the things that are not outwardly or
blatantly sinful or perverse even the things that
are applauded as estimable or ethical or doing
some service to humanity I see the insidious
and evil influence of the play of the
principalities and powers of the air upon these
institutions they're phony I see the falsity I
see the lie I cannot rejoice in the
graduation ceremonies I see the hulky business I
see the so-called rhetoric the phony speeches
the lie and I know that the prince
of the lie is behind the whole lie
of the subterfuge of the academic world how
much more than other institutions of government and
culture because we are naive and have not
seen the sinister influence any social concern of
human beings which neglects or refuses to deal
with the principalities with due regard for their
own dignity that is to say, not that
they're dignified but that they exist, that they
are authentic is delusive while any social change
predicated upon mere human action whether prompted by
so-called social gospel or motivated by some
pietism is doomed in other words, if you
just address yourself to institutions that seek to
bring about some amelioration or some change just
dealing with them horizontally and laterally and not
reckoning on what is invisible but in the
spirit realm your efforts are doomed to failure
our eyes need to be opened that behind
the cosmos are the invisible realities where the
action really is we wrestle not against flesh
and blood but against principalities and powers and
rulers of darkness we need to have our
eyes opened apostolically to see as God sees
where we're spinning wheels and we're just ventilating
ourselves and our energies will amount to nothing
now God says that through the church he's
reserved something for the church that was not
even given to Jesus himself and that is
to demonstrate to the principalities and powers the
manifold wisdom of God this has not to
do with atonement or even the issues of
government or society or the world but it's
something that fulfills a moral requirement of God
it's a mystery and just because it's a
mystery you need not think that it is
some kind of secondary or tangential matter I
want to say that this mystery is at
the heart of the moral cosmos of God
and it is the ultimate mystery for which
we have been chosen and that if we
miss this mystery and do not consciously understand
it and address ourselves to it we will
miss also the lesser things that will have
practical consequences in the earth we need to
see that God has chosen us to make
manifest his wisdom in a certain kind of
demonstration that is the cap or the completion
or the consummation of the whole purpose of
God that was established from the beginning at
the cross of Christ Jesus because that's where
the manifold wisdom is the failure too
of the church to consciously comprehend and appreciate
this mystery will affect also the realization of
its activity in earthly things the mission of
the church like the work of its exalted
head is not confined to the earth its
field is the whole cosmos talk about a
man speaking by faith that's me right now
of all places in Minnesota with a bunch
of rank and file men to speak to
them that if we miss understanding that our
field of activity is not just the earth
or the world but the entire cosmos we
miss the ultimate mystery of God and the
fullness and the purpose that God has imputed
to us as the church I have never
before heard anyone address this question I'm hearing
it for the first time out of my
own mouth and I'm believing by faith that
we have come to an hour and a
moment to apprehend the reason for which we
have been apprehended in Christ it is more
than the issue of atonement it's more even
than the issue of the amelioration or the
transformation of society it's even more than the
issue of the kingdom come it's an issue
beyond the earth it's an issue beyond time
it takes place in the realm of heavenlies
in an internal realm and yet it has
got to do with the very heart to
apprehend the reason for which God sank that
cross into the earth with a loud thud
God is waiting for completion a demonstration through
the church of that manifold wisdom to the
principalities and the powers it is a demonstration
of the manifold wisdom of God the fullnessness
of the cross the weakness of God that
contradicts satanic wisdom emphasizing power, force, violence intimidation,
divisiveness that's the demonstration it's the demonstration of
the power of forgiveness of meekness in suffering
unjustly it's attaining the true destiny for which
God brought forth the church with spiritual ends
and it goes to the farthermost reaches of
the universe it reminds us that our faith
is not a private matter but is integrally
related to the design of the cosmos itself
I'm not saying these things to be fancy
or that I'm trying to find some cunning
new doctrine or to elaborate some rarely spoken
thing I think that this is nuts and
bolts and is at the heart of the
whole mystery of the gospel and the mystery
of the church and the final and utter
consummation that God intends through the church is
this demonstration to the principalities and powers and
yet it has a remarkable practical consequence because
God wants that demonstration to be made on
the same basis by which Jesus made a
spoil of the enemy that's the wisdom of
God it's a response to adversity in meekness
it's the same thing as what is spoken
of in the scripture where it says that
Jesus by the eternal spirit offered himself without
blemish to God this is the heart of
Jesus at the cross he offered himself, the
lamb without blemish, spotless to God for the
purposes and the glory of the Father is
the same formula and the same way by
which we ought to offer ourselves by the
eternal spirit the cross and the spirit agree
and the cross and the spirit therefore are
the final and the ultimate revelation of what
God is what God demonstrated on the cross
is what God is it's Christ and him
crucified it's the lamb slain from the foundations
of the world it's the lamb likeness of
God demonstrated under ultimate adversity and suffering and
that's what we need to demonstrate to the
principalities and powers and every time we're brought
to a place of challenge every time we're
brought to a place of reproach a place
of persecution a place of shame, a place
of suffering a place of accusation a place
of death what we reveal in that moment
through the character that is shaped in us
being full of the Holy Spirit and seeing
the heaven opened is that demonstration to the
principalities and powers through the church now why
is this God's ultimate ace, so to speak
because it's through the church it's guys like
you and me who are roused about, drunks
fornicators a bunch of crap that had no
nothing to distinguish us and God saved us
out of death and God cleaned us up
and God gave us holy motivation and God
formed us into a body together we who
are reckless individualists and Jews who could not
tolerate Gentiles and vice versa and he's made
of us one new man and one people
the church and it's through the church the
creation of God this ultimate masterpiece of God
that the final demonstration comes to the principalities
and powers of the air and when that
comes all that God has intended in his
heart from the first through the cross is
fulfilled the final vestige of power of usurpation
of the enemy is once and for all
and utterly destroyed what began as the bruising
of his head ends as his final destruction
through the demonstration that comes by the church
of the manifold wisdom of God his meekness
in suffering and we shall not fulfill it
except we are prepared for it and we
are failing as ministers except we are presently
preparing our people for suffering unless we show
them and understand ourselves what is the high
calling in Christ Jesus which goes beyond the
issue of atonement and goes even beyond the
issue of the kingdom beyond the earth and
beyond time into the heavenlies and into eternity
itself into the very heart of the cosmos
in this demonstration is the faith it's a
mystery this is the mystery which for ages
has been hidden in God who created all
things in order that the manifold wisdom of
God might now be made known can you
believe that?
God created all things in order that this
manifold wisdom of God might now be made
known listen guys you just have to bring
yourself to where God is there's nothing that
I'm saying now that commends itself to your
reason there's nothing here that you'll approve of
because it's reasonable it has nothing to do
with your reason it has nothing to do
with what you like or don't like it
has everything and only to do with God
and what he likes but you need to
understand it you need to agree with it
you can read it again for yourself it's
Ephesians 3, 9-11 this is the mystery
which for ages has been hidden by God
in God who created all things in order
that the manifold wisdom of God might now
be made known through the church unto him
be glory in the church can you think
of anything more hideous than that the church
should be a means to our ends a
means for the elevation of ourselves the fulfillment
of our ministries by which we receive acknowledgement
from men or financial or monetary security or
some kind of Sunday or other benefit that
is a hideous distortion and caricature of God's
intention through the church unto him be glory
in the church he created all this in
order that this mystery might be fulfilled through
the church to the rulers and authorities in
heavenly places I don't know why why he
needs to make this demonstration I only know
that it pleases him and that's all that
I have to know do you know it?
that now might be made known it's a
mystery and yet because it's mysterious does not
mean that it's impractical it does not mean
that it's unrelated to the substantial calling that
we have to usher in a kingdom and
to pursue righteousness and I know that I
know that I know except that we understand
this mystery because if we don't take a
genuine hold of it we're going to fail
also in the practical and the earthly things
we need to see what is ultimate if
we're going to be effectual in the thing
that's immediate we need to see what's eternal
if we're going to be effectual in the
thing which is in time because you cannot
cut this asunder you cannot hack this up
into nice convenient dispensational pieces it's all one
continuum in God through the church through the
church this is enough reason to be it
true church that makes manifest this mystery because
nothing less than a true church can a
whole church that is apostolic like its founder
a whole church that lives in the meekness
of the spirit of Christ a whole church
that embraces suffering with humility a whole church
that lives in the spirit of forgiveness and
is able to love the enemy and does
not dismiss that as some dispensational thing for
a future millennium it loves the enemy now
it suffers patiently now it endures misunderstanding now
T.
Austin Sparks a great setter forth of the
faith of God and an influencer in Watchman
Me writes that the cross lies at the
heart of every disappointment triumphantly born and every
adversity meekly suffered that's what the cross is
that's what the genius of the cross is
that's what is the manifold wisdom of God
and it contradicts the manifold wisdom of Satan
Satan says if your flesh is pierced if
you are falsely accused if you are shortchanged
if you are denied you have every right
to shriek and howl and get even isn't
that what the Arabs are doing now isn't
that something that is rending South Africa between
black and white isn't that what has been
the justification of every bloodbath in the history
of man looking out for number one and
giving those guys what they deserve the Huns
or whatever you want to call them the
whole history of mankind is the history of
retaliation the whole history of mankind is violence
and brutality the whole history of mankind is
acting out its life in keeping with the
wisdom of Satan rather than the wisdom of
God but God is saying that at the
end of the age He is going to
have a people a heavenly body who are
going to show forth in suffering not anger
or bitterness or vengeance but patient and meek
endurance they are going to suffer and triumphantly
bear it and pray even for those who
are persecuting them Lord lay not this sin
to their charge and when hell sees this
when the principalities and the powers see this
they are finished it was one thing to
see it in Jesus and it bruised their
head but to see it in a church
of men who used to fight and rape
and loot and hire and shrink and to
see them in the same land likeness is
the final and ultimate demonstration of the manifold
wisdom of God are you consciously moving toward
the fulfillment of this mystery?
I'll tell you, I came back from my
last trip overseas wounded and convicted of God
for impatience and arrogance of spirit you say,
what horrendous thing did you do?
nothing but in little things I showed an
impatience and an edge so while my mouth
was speaking peace out of my own life
was yet issuing another kind of spirit which
is the spirit of impatience which in the
last analysis is the spirit of murder and
I've come back and I've said to God
Lord I don't want to go out again
until you have brought this to the cross
in me I want to know the meekness
of the Lamb in my own life and
there's a whole church that needs to know
it and needs to demonstrate that manifold wisdom
if I can give you a little recent
anecdote in my marriage there have been many
anecdotes most of them painful because I'm a
man for the truth and I'll tell you
what, I'll step over my own mother I'll
crush and I'll bludgeon for the truth's sake
and somehow my wife has not altogether appreciated
that over 18 years and somehow however keen
my discernments have been of her carnality and
error and shortcomings she has not changed the
truth has bludgeoned, has not worked a thing
you know why?
it was in the wrong spirit it was
the wrong moral base we've had separate bedrooms
for some time and you know what happens
when a man is denied in his flesh
and the impatience and the irritation and the
anger and the self-justification that comes now
you pounce on your wife when you find
her justifiably in a mistake and let her
have it but I came down one day,
I forgot how this took place it was
just a few days ago anger was still
stunned and marveling over it and I said
to her in such a quiet and measured
way I don't know where this statement came
from I said you know you're a rather
disagreeable woman she didn't say anything to me
then but she has not stopped talking of
it since she said that one statement has
done more to penetrate my soul and convict
me than any of your scathing condemnations and
critiques of my carnality over the years do
you know why it was effectual?
because it was spoken in the spirit of
the Lamb it was not spoken in a
reaction to my woundedness or my being denied
it was truth spoken in love in another
spirit and something happened to my wife a
release because something was touched in the heavenlies
in the principalities and the powers that have
long had too great a sway in her
life something had to be lodged something had
to be moved something jerked in the orbit
of the cosmos way up there in the
invisible realms that touched a little Danish woman
right here in Minnesota because in a moment
when I should have spoken with greater anger
or irritation or personal peak something came out
that was of another kind the wisdom of
God and since that time my wife has
not been all that disagreeable see, there's a
practical consequence but there's also a mystery we've
got again and again and again by the
eternal spirit to offer ourselves without blemish to
God that's the mystery that's the wisdom so
every true operation of the cross is an
operation of the spirit so that God is
all in all and brings to the core
of the cosmos by every such act of
the church his quintessential self the nature of
the Lamb see, I'm glad this is being
taped because there's no way that you can
receive this in one hearing I don't know
that I understand it in one speaking but
I know that what I'm speaking is true
because the life is offered by the eternal
spirit something is revealed that is both the
spirit and the life which is the nature
of God himself ultimately right at the core
of the cosmos where the principalities and powers
are every time we act in adversity, in
weakness rather than in anger or self justification
is your church experience shaping this character in
your life?
then your church is wanting and is outside
God's intention for it as church because if
our character is not being shaped in the
church where is it being shaped?
and it will not accept that we see
this mystery and desire to be apprehended by
him for the reasons for which he intended
that we be apprehended that God might be
all in all where Jesus was on the
cross is what God is it's the ultimate
revelation God is like that that's the image
of the invisible God that's God's nature we're
on the cross or a cross situation and
we act as if there's a heaven opened
and we can say to our persecutors or
of them Lord forgive them they know not
what they've done I'll tell you if we
can't react to our wife who is our
persecutor how shall we react to the world
who will become our persecutor God gives us
such wise as basic training and if we
flub it there we're not going to make
it in the world because the things that
are little are the cosmos that's the mystery
of the faith and I praise God for
such a faith I praise God for such
challenge I praise God for such a high
calling because I was made for this and
anything less would leave me bored stiff anything
less is not sufficiently demanding it does not
require of me what this requires this is
ultimate this deals with the cosmos and yet
immediate practicality we need to see it and
we need to lay hold of it so
the church that was once sent to us
perverse, selfish, brutal is the ultimate demonstration of
the triumph of the cross in all that
is inimical and opposed at the very axis
of the cosmos the heavenlies what was bruised
at the cross by Jesus is now utterly
devastated and destroyed by the church in its
patient suffering God is not greater than he
is in this humiliation more powerful than in
this helplessness more glorious in this self-surrender
he has acted in himself by this he
has robbed Satan of his force patient suffering
has proved stronger than hate its might is
powerful in weakness the inner life of God
that is ultimate godliness has triumphed over ultimate
godlessness the love of God has gone outside
the gate in the garbage dump it has
condescended even into hell in the beginning and
ultimately has gone upward even into the heavenlies
can you see the magnitude of this?
from the garbage dump outside the gate of
Jerusalem right into hell the triumph of the
cross was taken and now at the end
of the ages its going to be taken
into the farthest reaches of the cosmos through
the church in its demonstration to the principalities
and powers of the manifold wisdom of God
the cross of Christ Jesus is now this
is that for which we have been apprehended
in Christ Jesus a cosmic struggle for the
mastery of creation at which the cross is
the very heart how shall we escape if
we neglect so great salvation not to press
for the fulfillment of Ephesians 3.10 is
to do despite to the cross and the
blood of the son of God to be
satisfied with atonement only to speak of the
cross only in terms of atonement the whole
purpose of God in this ultimate mystery is
to do despite to God's grace and to
short change as it were the cross of
Christ the coming of the Lord is the
outcome of the church's arrival at its heavenly
position did you know that?
that the Lord's appearing is not some fixed
chronological event that is going to come irrespective
of our condition but on the contrary our
condition has everything to do with hasten the
day of the appearing of the Lord and
you know what it's waiting on?
this final demonstration the fulfillment of this mystery
into the cosmos into the heavenlies because it's
waiting for the church it's what's happening in
your house and what's going on behind your
shutters and your pull down curtains because we're
in this together it's not a private and
an individual matter it's the church it's through
the church getting its fulfillment so this is
the mystery which for ages has been hidden
in God who created all things in order
that the manifold wisdom of God might now
at last finally be made known through the
church through the rulers and authorities in the
heavenly places this Paul says was in accordance
with the eternal purpose the margin says which
he carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord
you know what I feel like?
I feel like I'm a man who's hearing
for the first time the gospel of the
kingdom I feel like anything up till now
has been some stunted and abbreviated and articulated
doctrine that has only to do with private,
personal narrow salvation but this is the gospel
this is the good news this is the
glory this is the mystery this is the
faith this is the calling and if you
think that you can do it independent of
the cross and the position of authority that
it gives us in power you're mistaken it
all goes together and the cross is at
its center we can't succeed in this and
fail in the kingdom it's all integral and
indivisible because ultimate is immediate now
Paul says in order that now through the
church I thank God that I'm saved I
praise God that I'm in the church I
praise God for the high calling I praise
God for adversity I praise God for the
wife that he's given I praise God for
the demands and the trials of community I
praise God for every stretching because I understand
that he's wanting something that he'll not be
fulfilled he'll not be gratified he'll not be
pleased until he has it it doesn't have
to make sense to me I only have
to know it's a mystery for which he
has created all things in order that now
through the church so I just want to
pray that when our trials come when our
sufferings come when our persecutions come whether it's
under our own roof or in the local
community or on some ministerial battle front when
disappointment comes when something pierces our flesh we
shall triumphantly bear it and that every adversity
shall be meekly endured I want to make
this my conscious goal and I invite God
to deal with my character in life to
deal with my impatience that he might work
that lamb-likeness in me for the fulfillment
of the mystery through the church hallelujah I
just want to pray that this word will
come into our consciousness that we'll rejoice that
we'll not grind our teeth and purse our
lips in self-pity if somehow we are
elected for a measure of suffering or adversity
it has to do with the fulfillment of
a mystery that has been waiting until now
precious God Lord I don't know about these
guys but I count myself so privileged I
can hardly stand it my God what a
calling truly how shall we escape so great
salvation Lord we never understood the magnitude no
wonder our lives were half-vast no wonder
my God that they were slip-shot and
casual and indifferent no wonder it was just
a get-by thing no wonder we were
escapists and rapturists no wonder we were just
getting by because we did not understand the
mystery and the calling of the church till
now and Lord we just want to say
thank you that you have elected us here
in Minnesota in this place to speak these
things to make them to live in our
spirits to raise our sight heavenward to come
in my God to the glory of this
mystery it exceeds the kingdom and yet the
kingdom shall not come in indifference to it
and I ask my God every grace and
every enablement and I thank you for the
glory of the life that came forth out
of your death by which we can meet
every adversity and weakness teach us how to
draw from that life how to reckon ourselves
and be dead unto ourselves but alive unto
God bring this my God from adversity to
adversity from suffering to suffering for a while
may we live continually with an open heaven
seeing Jesus at the right hand of God
and the glory because we are filled with
the Holy Spirit and because we look up
to an open heaven I bless these men
and I ask my God a seal on
this holy speaking and the themes that it
has pleased you to sound in this seminar
we know my God how how apt we
are to forget and for the things to
leak but we ask Lord a holy seal
that the spirit, the substance the reality and
the truth of what you have spoken my
God in these days will remain forever in
our spirits it will change us it will
enlarge us it will enable us to walk
differently and to be differently because in your
wisdom you have appointed something now through the
church we bless the church of Jesus Christ
in this locality we bless it precious God
in Cass Lake in Walker, in Bemidji Thief
River Falls in Detroit Lakes my God in
Oshkosh, in Timbuktu in every aspect, in every
place where it is there is nothing to
look at nothing to consider church full of
weakness and full of contradiction we ask you
a blessing upon the church and Lord I
ask you a particular blessing upon these men
who are before me who have been appointed
for these days who are called and chosen
to be leaders to be messengers to be
the ministers of the gospel of the kingdom
to raise the standard of the cross and
to make known what has been previously hidden
in God throughout all ages the mystery of
the church that through us shall be made
known to the principalities and powers the manifold
wisdom of God seal us for this calling
my God we cannot speak these things except
by the grace of your life and your
wisdom and we pray now that it will
be spoken this gospel shall be proclaimed the
gospel of this kingdom to all nations and
then shall the end come seal up these
men my God may we leave transformed may
there be something new in our step something
more erect in our posture a different kind
of light in our eyes a far more
serious visage in our demeanor and in our
confidence less wavering and confusion indecisiveness in our
voices greater assurity greater confidence greater solemnity greater
fear of the knowledge of God greater respect
for the high calling in Christ Jesus greater
love for the church greater celebration of the
cross greater exaltation of the spirit change us
because we have heard your word and let
there be an impact in the earth and
we'll thank you and praise you and in
eternity also in Jesus' holy name and God's
men said