We're talking about apostolic character.
And I've brought the congregation to a text
in 1 Thessalonians.
I don't know that we're going to go
there again, but just to remind us.
You are witnesses, Paul says in verse 10
of the second chapter, and so is God
of how devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we
behave toward you believers.
You are witnesses and so is God of
how devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we behave
toward you believers.
And the word blameless is not infrequent in
Paul's vocabulary.
He talks about presenting you blameless in the
day of the Lord's appearing.
And a word like that sounds to us
somewhat luxurious, blameless.
It's too absolute.
It's too impeccable.
It doesn't allow for any condition.
Our age is not aligned for a word
like blameless because of its total and unsparing
absoluteness.
But I believe with all my heart that
Paul was not a woofing.
But when he said blameless, that's exactly what
he meant.
Impeccable, unadulterated, unaffected, unconditioned, unrelieved, un-anything,
pure, unmitigated, blamelessness.
To be without blame before men and before
God.
Having a conscience without blame before men and
without God.
That sounds too absolute a standard, but I'll
tell you that as I go on in
the faith, and I go on in a
world that is becoming increasingly vile and corrupt,
you know what I believe?
That what the world would consider ideal or
absolute or unattainable is really for us the
only standard.
If you don't insist on blamelessness, you're going
to find yourself eroding and condescending and yielding
and giving in to compromise and other kinds
of mitigating circumstances that before you know it
and when the smoke clears, you will be
blamed.
You understand what I'm saying?
Blamelessness is the only realistic apostolic standard for
God's people at the end of the age.
And we just need to repent of other
kinds of mindsets that tell us that such
things are unattainable.
After all, it's perfectly in keeping with God's
other injunctions to be holy as he is
holy and perfect as your Father in heaven
is perfect.
And either God is taunting us or provoking
us or is raising the standard which if
we are serious enough about its fulfillment, he'll
give us the grace to attain.
You understand?
I think that it would be wise for
us to fail with every intent of succeeding
in blamelessness than to succeed by finding for
ourselves a more modest and acceptable standard of
conduct and character.
Am I getting too fancy already?
Because you're looking at me somewhat perplexedly and
bewildered.
It's all straight English.
The only thing is what these English words
mean that makes the flesh very restive and
uncomfortable.
So I just want to repeat again.
If we really have an eye to perceive
what is moving in the world in terms
of filth, darkness, subtlety, vileness, temptation, evil, wickedness,
violence, and it's going to mushroom and cascade
and cover the earth until the whole world
will be in a thick darkness.
And yet at that time God says, Arise
and shine, for your light has come.
At the very hour when the world is
going to be pervaded in such unspeakable filth
and darkness, God is wanting in the midst
of it a light, the light of his
glory, the light of his beauty, and the
light of his holiness to be reflected in
his people.
And nations will find the way to that
light.
So we have an example of a man
who not only believed it, but walked in
it.
And he walked in it with such almost
audacity, he says that, As you know what
manner of man I was with you from
the beginning in all seasons.
You are my witness and so is God.
I don't know how many of us are
willing to invoke God to be the witness
to an impeccable standard of conduct and character.
So we have one flesh and blood man
who was at one time a murderer and
a persecutor, who by the grace of God
moved in a standard of conduct that no
one could fault him.
That no one who saw him in any
of the churches with whom he labored day
and night could say that there was inconsistency
or contradiction.
It's of the same piece as Jesus saying
to those who laid hold on him, Which
of you can convict me of sin?
And I'm just speaking off the top of
my head tonight.
I don't have much else left in God.
I feel that deplenished to say that this
is with the Lord.
I'm almost surprised to hear the direction I'm
taking right from the outset.
If you knew what I knew, my ignorance
and my unpreparedness, you would know it's the
Lord.
That the Lord is wanting to impress us
to have our minds renewed in an apostolic
way.
And that the greatest guarantee that we're going
to fall or that we're going to bring
shame to the name of the Lord or
we're going to infect the church with a
leaven that will ultimately corrupt and leaven the
entire lump is our own softness to ourselves,
our own condescension toward ourselves that we don't
establish a standard too difficult for us to
attain.
I mean, after all, as we Lutherans are
very fond of saying, we're only sinners being
saved by grace.
Right?
If I've ever heard anything from Lutheran models
repeatedly again and again, it's that.
After all, what you know, we're only sinners
saved by grace.
We're always speaking apologetically.
We're always, in a sense, making room for
ourselves.
But it's a room that Paul never allowed
for himself.
And therefore, it is not reflected in the
standard that he put before the church.
Even the church that was newly saved out
of paganism and idolatry to serve the living
God because the gospel came to them in
power and in full conviction of the Spirit,
even as you know what manner of men
we prove to be among you for your
sake.
Are you following me?
I mean, we're going to find out if
God is the God of grace indeed.
If we can, in an age such as
this, with all of its filthy and vile
influences and subtleties, not just live what would
impress the world as being moral or ethical
or decent or respectable, but blameless.
Because our approval does not come from men,
but from God.
He's not a Jew who is one inwardly,
whose circumcision is of the flesh, who goes
by the letter, but he's one whose circumcision
is of the heart, goes by the Spirit,
and whose praise and esteem is not from
men, but of God.
So as we mentioned many times in these
weeks, Paul is one who lived in an
acute consciousness that his life was being walked
out before God, the judge, and before whom
all things are transparent and before whom all
things are known.
You are witnesses, and so is God.
And if we really believe that, if we
really believe that, how much hanky-panky would
there be going on?
And if not, in fact, how much hanky
-panky would we be contemplating, and for the
want of courage we're not doing, or for
the want of opportunity.
But as I hope to show tonight, what
is the apostolic standard is not just an
outward correctness, not just a formal absence of
grievous sin, but a total thing that is
consistent within and without the inner man and
the outer man.
The unseen life, the hidden life, the thought
life, and the life that makes itself manifest
in conduct and in action as being one
thing through and through the cookie.
That is apostolic character.
Apostolic character is never satisfied with only the
outward phenomenon, but the whole thing through and
through.
So how we conduct ourselves privately and personally
is really a statement to whether we believe
or not whether our life is being lived
in his sight.
And really, if it were known, it's scandalous,
the liberties that we take and the things
that we allow ourselves in our thought life
and in the secret life because somehow it
can't be observed and it's not going to
catch up with us, it's not going to
have any consequence that will catch us in
a situation that will be embarrassing or worse.
And yet so long as we allow an
interior life that is not consistent with the
outward life, where there's blame, we've not attained
to the apostolic standard.
And I think it's only a matter of
time before what we think will become what
we do.
Can I read you a little quote that
I wrote in the back of my Bible?
This is a priceless Bible.
If I go before you do, don't forget
to look at the back for all of
my notes.
Like, for example, this one from a little
-known saint by the name of Samuel Bengal,
a Salvation Army officer of the last century,
who writes that the secret of all failures
and of all true success is hidden in
the attitude of the soul in its private
walk with God.
When have we heard anything like that last?
Is it with hearing again?
The secret of all failures and of all
true success, of all true success, see, true
success or all apostolic success, is not just
measured by whether something works, or whether it's
expedient, or whether it's utilitarian, or it gets
by.
If it's true, it's true through and through,
or it's not true.
It's the whole truth, or nothing but the
truth, or it's not true.
I mean, a schoolchild will tell you that.
Maybe not a schoolchild of this generation, but
of mine.
Here's a statement by A.
W.
Toza.
How many people here have never read A.
W.
Toza?
Raise your hand.
Oh, my.
Get thee to the library, the Christian bookstore,
immediately.
A.
W.
Toza, precious.
What we think about when we are free
to think about what we will, that is
what we are or will soon become.
Our voluntary thoughts reveal what we are.
They predict what we will become.
All conscious behavior is preceded and arises out
of our thoughts.
Anyone who wishes to check on his true
spiritual condition may do so by noting what
his voluntary thoughts have been over the last
hours or days.
What has he thought about when he has
been free to think of what he pleased
and toward what has his inner heart turned
when it was free to turn where it
would?
My Lord.
I'm glad that these talks are being recorded.
We need to play that again and again
and again.
It's a kind of voice and insight and
statement that is just completely uncommon in our
generation.
It's so insightful about the interior life in
what it really is and what is its
massive significance that we will be poorer for
indifference to such a writing.
When the bird of thought was let go,
did it fly out like the raven to
settle upon floating carcasses or did it like
the dove circle and return to the Ark
of God?
If we are honest with ourselves, we can
discover not only what we are but what
we are soon to become will soon be
the sum of our voluntary thoughts.
I think Paul was that kind of a
man.
He was consistent.
He didn't have one kind of life publicly
and another kind of life privately.
And as a minister of the pulpit, I
know how easy it is to have that
and not only to have it but to
have it in such a way as not
to be faulted or to be criticized because
who is going to rebuke you because the
other men who are ministers are also doing
the same.
And our poor wives have to suffer the
discrepancy between what we are publicly and what
we are privately and live with what seems
to be irreconcilable differences.
And we allow ourselves the luxury of going
on like that all the more if the
public ministry is anointed.
I think God is calling to the church
in preparation for its final hour and it's
to be a glorious hour that these are
standards that can no longer be suffered.
And God is calling for a consistency within
and without publicly and privately that is one
whole same thing.
For I believe that the archaic and original
primitive meaning of the word holy derives from
the word wholeness.
To be holy is to be whole, is
to be consistent, is to be one thing
before God and before men within and without
in all seasons from the beginning to the
end.
And it's evident as I go on talking
like this and in all of the other
talks and it will continue to be true
to the end that what God is raising
for us is a standard that in no
way can ever be fulfilled out of well
-meaning religious intention.
This is going to require a shifting of
gears and a coming in to a transcendent
knowledge of the reality of the resurrection life.
That it's no accident that the same Paul
who speaks about blamelessness is the same one
also who says for me to live is
Christ.
This is not humanly attainable.
But if we have been living on the
basis of what is humanly attainable and have
been nice guys and moral guys and decent
guys on the basis of our own intention
and strength and energy we have been outside
the faith.
We have been in some religious realm something
outside of the kingdom and apostolic glory because
the standard of God is always beyond what
is possible for us to attain in our
own power and ability.
And as I said once before and I'll
say again and again at the end of
the age the thing that distinguishes the false
church from the true is not whether one
ascribes or agrees with the doctrine of resurrection
and the other doesn't even the false church
will nominally subscribe to the correct doctrine but
the one is in the power and the
reality of resurrection and the other is not.
So if you've not shifted those gears I'm
encouraging you and you'll find opportunity to stretch
be stretched and to find the grace of
God.
And it's a remarkable experience when you hear
yourself saying things that you know are not
out of your wisdom.
When you see a quality of courage that
you know is beyond your own mortal frame
when you experience a strength that is beyond
your own weakness when you see a steadfastness
and a faithfulness that you know is beyond
your human resolution and resolve that you have
tapped into the power of the resurrection life.
I want to encourage you in that because
without it we're going to find ourselves in
a day that is appearing to be blamed.
Paul speaks of having a conscience without offense
toward God and toward men and that's where
the area of our private thoughts and our
hidden life is most revealed.
How critical are our private thoughts?
How selfish?
How resentful are they?
How sensual are they?
How ungodly are they?
If you're going to have a conscience that
is free from offense toward God and toward
men it must include your thought life.
And what shall we say of the enormous
battering that is continually playing upon us and
even when we I'm not talking about opening
ourselves to the things that are vile but
watching a ball game or turning through the
day's newspaper or reading the Time of Newsweek
magazine or whatever it is you're going to
find some inadvertent thing slipped in.
Some kind of seductive thing included.
Some kind of illusion.
Some TV ad for a new series coming
up with just a glimpse of something that
is suggestive.
It's almost impossible not to feel the increasing
power and subtlety of things that cloy at
us to receive admission into our thought life.
Keep your heart with all diligence for out
of it proceed all the issues of life.
It's going to take a vigil to keep
ourselves when we're living in such an age.
So the apostle is a thing in himself
through and through the incarnate word of truth
the whole truth and nothing but the truth
even in his private and personal thoughts.
He is conscious of a God in whose
sight he is utterly transparent.
You are witnesses, he says and so is
God how devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we
behave toward you believers and how such a
position requires the integrity of the total man
both inner and outer and especially in what
we think when we are free to think
what we will.
If we allow ourselves I've talked about sensuality
but what shall we say about resentment irritation
jealousy envy anger how many times do we
allow a petulant thought to enter our spirits
or compare ourselves with another saint or make
some invidious comparison between ministers or always taking
a pot shot at this preacher or that
or maybe we don't speak it to another
but the thought rolls over in our own
spirits.
So this is equally an area where our
conscience will be defiled in giving ourselves to
thoughts of this kind and I propose by
the grace of God to speak something about
the Lord's provision to walk in this kind
of impeccability.
In the notes that are before me I'm
reading I marvel because this was an extemporaneous
thought that was transcribed.
I'm not saying these things to bring us
under a condemnation but to show you how
high is the standard of excellence that God
calls apostolic and so it must be for
it is the standard that is a plumb
line from heaven to earth.
It is the direct ladder that connects heaven
with earth.
A plumb line and a standard for an
unbelieving world against which all things are to
be measured.
The church itself is the pillar and the
ground of truth.
I don't know if you're familiar with that
scripture and for us to be it this
is not just an appeal for random individuals
who are inspired by a lofty standard.
This is God's normative intention for all the
church.
The ground and pillar of truth.
A plumb line, a standard from heaven.
If you want to make a case I
think you can make it.
A lot of what is devious and fallen
and corrupt and perverse in our world is
the statement of the absence of this kind
of standard in the world that the church
should constitute.
That's why judgment begins in the house of
God.
If God is going to judge the world
what will he have to say to the
church who has not been this heavenly plumb
line and has not given the world any
kind of thing against which its own standards
should be measured.
Now, this places a tremendous premium on what
the church itself is.
Because not only must we emphasize the resurrection
life as the enablement to live in this
way but a church that really is church
by which we relate to one another in
such a way as to provoke and to
encourage each other in love to such a
standard.
Confess your faults one to another that you
might pray one to another and be healed.
Exhort one another daily while it is yet
today.
You know that scripture?
I think in Hebrews.
Why?
Because tomorrow is too late.
Next Sunday is definitely too late.
Because the first thing that catches us is
the deceitfulness of sin.
It says, Exhort one another daily while it
is yet today because of the deceitfulness of
sin.
And what is its first major deceit?
Is that it disguises itself as sin.
That we do not recognize it as sin.
And we make excuse for it or allowance
for it.
Its habit.
Its circumstance.
We've got it coming.
It's a condition.
We were tired.
We were under pressure.
Some such thing.
So where then does the grace come from
to point to something that we would not
otherwise see for ourselves?
It's got to come from the church that
is church.
Exhort one another daily while it is yet
today.
So it's a church that is not just
a congregation of silent and passive pew sitters.
It's a church that meets more frequently than
on Sunday.
It's a church that knows each other well
enough that when they begin to see a
deterioration or a slide or an erosion they'll
be the first ones to speak the word
of truth and love to that person in
whom they see the evidence of sin.
Are you guys following me?
You don't sound too enthusiastic about that.
Just to give you a little anecdote.
I came back from an overseas trip and
I had an opportunity to speak in a
church where I had spent three or four
substantial years of my charismatic life and I
won't say where.
And I had been away for it for
some time.
And that early Sunday morning the Lord wakened
me with these scriptures.
Exhort one another daily while it is yet
today.
Beware the deceitfulness of sin.
And I fell asleep again.
And then finally the day began and wore
on and I came to the service and
went into the pastor's study and met with
the elders and they checked me out to
see if I was still kosher and acceptable.
And I went on the platform and I
didn't have any message as yet which was
not unusual.
And there's a great sense of expectancy in
the church and excitement.
I had not been there for years and
had some precious people who cared for me
and expected a real word from God.
And I was still without a word.
And when the time came I still didn't
have it.
I was being introduced and I was feeling
all kinds of hot spells and flashes and
wondering.
And just to make sure to see if
I was okay I checked the scriptures to
see if I could read them and I
could not.
It was a blur.
And I said to the pastor I said,
is it hot in here?
He said, no it must be you.
So I stood up and I thought well
the best I can do I'll give them
a report of the overseas trip from which
I've just come.
But after all I can't even read the
scriptures.
So I took a deep breath and I
prayed and I thought after I prayed I'll
just begin a kind of report which would
be interesting and challenging.
And as I prayed the Lord then reminded
me again of the scripture.
Exhort one another daily while it is yet
today.
And I was reminded at the same time
in a few days I was back in
that town that I learned that four of
the most spiritual women in that congregation had
every one without exception fallen away.
Left husbands, divorced them taken up new mates
fallen into whoredom in complete moral disgrace and
collapse.
Not just your average saint but some of
the four among the most spiritual.
And the Lord and I just by faith
continued after that scripture to raise the question
how is it that four women so well
known to the congregation as that could suffer
a fate like that without the awareness of
the church itself until it was too late.
It was one of the leading charismatic fellowships
in the nation full of amens and hallelujahs
and back slappings and bear hugs but they
did not know each other well enough to
note and to see and to discern the
subtle indications of changes in personality in voice
and speech in countenance and conduct that would
indicate that something that was already working which
it was not identified corrected and repented of
would take its inevitable and full toll.
Exhort one another daily while it is yet
today.
So the point I'm trying to make and
I'm asking you to be alert with me
now because this is critical we shall not
attain to the standard of blamelessness individually and
independent of each other.
If we are earnest about being God's people
in a final hour in an apostolic standard
it throws a whole new weight on what
is the character and kind of thing that
we call church to which we belong and
to which we give ourselves.
So even as we have to repent of
a moral I'm sorry a standard for morality
that was higher than the world's but less
than God's as not being adequate so too
must we repent of a definition of church
which was better than most but still less
than God's.
Are you following me?
Charismatic church is better than most but is
yet less than God's.
And just as we must be vigilant to
keep our hearts with all diligence so too
must we give ourselves much more demandingly to
this kind of church than what charismatic church
requires.
Exhort one another daily while it is yet
today.
Sunday services with midweek Bible studies will not
suffice and somehow we have to break out
of the mold and the character and the
form that the modern church has taken as
an appendage to the world that in no
way seriously is an incursion or threatens the
business of the world or even the business
of a ball game on Sunday so that
we can get it in and have all
this in heaven too and find the time
the attentiveness to each other's life that will
enable us to be blameless before Him and
have a conscience undefiled before God and before
men.
That's going to be sacrificial but I don't
think that we have an alternative if we
believe that this is a standard that God
requires.
I wrote here we are not going to
obtain this in a day but we will
not obtain it at all if we do
not consciously see it as an object to
be desired as an object that can be
obtained walked in to move from our present
fear of men to the restoration of the
fear of God must be our apostolic goal
and mission for which we need the participation
of everyone for we are all in this
together.
Can you see then how extraordinary and necessary
a requirement true church is.
They went from house to house daily breaking
bread.
And I don't think that that was just
a little light social visit How you doing
Joe?
And a little back slap and a cup
of coffee and they left.
First of all they didn't have any TV
sets to turn off.
There was no phone to use to say
I'm coming.
So they came at any untoward and unexpected
hour.
You didn't get a chance to tidy yourself
up.
You were what you are when they came
in which is not always good.
And yet is the greatest good if that's
where you realistically are and what the saints
need to see that they might counsel you
and pray with you and help you from
that place to a place that's more to
be desired.
And how many of us are saved from
that because our life has taken on more
of the semblance of the world.
We're too distant from each other.
We have cars.
We can live in different neighborhoods.
It's too inconvenient to visit.
We have to make appointments.
It's just different.
But need it be that.
Need we subscribe to the form that the
world itself has established or can we, if
we think that this is significant enough break
out of it and find a mode of
apostolic living that would make the church the
kind of authentic thing that would encourage us
and strengthen us in our determination to be
blameless before God and before men and have
consciences that are undefiled.
Exhorting one another daily while it is yet
today because next Sunday is too late.
By the way, just a little P.S.
I lived in community for 10 years with
the same saints on the same 160-acre
farm and actually where our households were was
probably less than 4 acres and for 10
years and yet that in itself was not
a guarantee that we lived in this kind
of ruthless honesty and light by which we
could exhort and rebuke and encourage because even
in that if you want to hide, you
can still hide.
Merely arranging the physical form of our life
and singing to the frequency of our getting
together will not guarantee that we're going to
exhort one another and avail ourselves of the
things that God has given the church about
speaking the truth and love if we still
desire to remain hidden.
So in the last analysis whatever the form
of our life whether we're in a community
on a farm or living in St. Paul
in an urban situation the first requisite is
a heart's desire for apostolic lifestyle a love
for the truth and for righteousness and for
blamelessness and for holiness as unto God as
first consideration.
And if we don't have that we'll not
be willing for any sacrifice that would make
it possible.
And we'll not have a love for the
truth if we have not a love for
God.
Because truth is not some abstract thing it's
what he himself is as is also righteousness
and holiness.
So in the last analysis what is the
condition of our love for God will find
us out.
After all why was Paul concerned that the
saints whom he brought to the Lord and
nurtured in the faith should on the day
of the Lord's appearing be blameless and that
they were somehow his trophy and his joy
that he could present them to the Lord
blameless in the day of the Lord's appearing.
What was his motive?
Was it gold stars or a bonus or
was it just to delight the Lord?
Was it just to lay a treasure a
crown before the God who saved him out
of being a persecutor and a murderer?
If we don't regain that motive no amount
of exhortation is going to stir us to
be blameless and without offense before God and
before men.
And also that precious statement of Paul unto
him be glory in the church.
That's the glory of the church is such
a church unto him a jewel in an
age in which thick darkness pervades the earth
and all peoples So we need to pray
that we're not dilettantes Do you know what
a dilettante is?
A coffee table talker One who likes to
sound spiritual at the coffee table and quote
a scripture and cite a favorite passage or
something like that.
The world has its equivalent and so does
the kingdom of dilettantes whose Christian life is
fixed at a verbal level.
Pray that we are not dilettantes wanting to
hear some new thing and titillated by apostolic
concepts but having no high serious intention to
fulfill them.
It would be better for us that we
had never been there that we had never
heard these things than to hear them and
have no serious intention of fulfilling them.
Oh by the way I don't think I
ever mentioned this till now I might as
well go the rest of the way tonight
We're going to be responsible for all that
we're hearing Wednesday by Wednesday I don't know
if that thought has occurred to you These
have been blessed weeks and the Lord has
been giving us his purest heart and richest
understanding but we are accountable for what we're
hearing How do we know that?
I often feel sorry when people have me
as a speaker maybe it's going to happen
Friday and Saturday the full gospel at municipal
auditorium and I ask you to pray for
that I'm the speaker Friday and Saturday afternoon
together with the happy hunters and that invitation
I believe is from the Lord and I
don't right now know what I'll be speaking
but I often say to churches who are
thrilled to have a Jewish personality and someone
who suggests something novel and interesting Hey, this
might prove more expensive to you than you
realize You're likely to find God saying something
of an unusual kind and once it's said
in your hearing you're accountable for that word
and don't think that's cat speaking to us
How about the guy who's speaking it?
What does it say about don't all desire
to be teachers?
Because teachers have yet a greater responsibility before
God?
So you can see how many things are
touched by the issue of apostolic character We
can't speak of it without referring to the
reality of the resurrection life because mere human
intention and goodwill and sincerity will not of
itself accomplish it and on the other hand
without the intention it will not be accomplished
either and then it brings into question the
whole issue of the church its character, its
reality the truth of the relationships by the
people who make it up their courage, their
love, their faith to exhort one another daily
while it's yet to date How do you
like to be exhorted?
Is that pleasant to the flesh?
And this guy's going to say something to
you and you're going to rise up in
great indignation for this great saint you are
and be insulted?
And how dare he?
And who does he think he is?
And his condition is far worse than yours
and where does he come off to say
that about you?
It's going to take courage to exhort It's
going to take love to receive The whole
character and the atmosphere of the church is
going to have to change from the kind
of brittle and touchy thing that has prevailed
until now where we're walking on eggshells and
are afraid to break through from the pat
on the back and the full gospel bear
hug and God has called us to that
breakthrough He's called us to that reality He's
called us to a real love Somebody who
has a King James would want to turn
to 1 Peter I don't like the way
it's written here in the New American Standard
1 Peter 1.22 Since you have in
obedience to the truth purified your souls for
a sincere love of the brethren fervently love
one another from the heart Who could give
that to us in the King James?
Please Wow
Can you bring that up to me?
I want to pull my wire here That's
too much That's okay Seeing that you have
purified your souls in obeying the truth through
the spirit unto unfamed love Paul talks about
hypocrisy and I was thinking tonight I don't
know if I have the strength or the
time to remind you of a text in
Galatians where Paul confronted Peter to his face
because he was walking in insincerity and he
was one thing when the Jewish believers were
not in...
what city were they in?
outside of Jerusalem and he was another thing
when they were absent there was dissimilitude there
was feigning there was a double standard by
the foundations of the church the one to
whom the keys had been given was one
thing with Jewish believers refraining from fraternizing and
socializing with the Gentiles and eating at the
table and another thing with the Gentile believers
when the Jews were not present and when
Paul saw that he did not hesitate for
a moment to confront Peter and that publicly
to his face for the truth of the
gospel's sake we need to be reminded of
that and because there were men that had
hearts like that and took the risks of
that kind of confrontation the gospel was preserved
for us in all truth and integrity that's
Galatians chapter 1 or 2 1 Peter 1
.22 the other
is Galatians 2 verse 14 when I saw
that they were not straightforward about the truth
of the gospel I said to Cephas in
the presence of all dot dot dot dot
that's the apostolic standard that's the truth that's
love and love itself has lost its meaning
it's become sentimental and condescending when it may
be greatest love to exhort and to confront
and if need be publicly and face to
face for the truth of the gospel's sake
and yet there's nothing in the epistles that
suggests or the book of Acts that there
was any kind of strangulation between Paul and
Peter I would think if a man spoke
like that to me something that I was
not seeing about myself that I had slipped
into in a kind of mindless and unconscious
way I would owe that man an eternal
debt of gratitude in fact for the want
of such men we are slipping we are
falling we are deteriorating in the quality of
our walk so listen to this seeing that
you are purified seeing that you have purified
your souls in obeying the truth through the
spirit it takes the spirit to obey the
truth my god so even Jesus made himself
a sacrifice by the eternal spirit not by
human will in obeying the truth through the
spirit unto unfamed love of the brethren unfamed
love not some kind of sugary outward seeming
affection or polite or cordial reference but something
that is authentically so through and through because
you work your way through envy, jealousy, suspicion,
hostility anger, irritation something that the other brother
has occasioned in your thought and rather than
live with it and swallow it and let
it continue to affect you you've come to
him you've talked, you've shared, you've expressed your
concern, your doubt you've worked it out you've
done him a favor by confronting him it's
purest love and the end result will be
unfamed love of the brethren not an atmosphere
it will be burning it will be crackling
with the presence of God we won't have
to hope against hope that when we pray
God will touch that one for whose body
we're praying the greatest experience I've ever had
in God exposing me to this kind of
apostolic reality is when I was yet a
young believer and was invited to a fellowship
in Japan called the Tabernacle Movement I've never
seen anything like it before nor since they
believed in that love that is a melting
fervent heat and everything takes place in the
field of love they say like the term
in physics and I would get up from
the hotel room and begin to move down
to the conference hall on the mornings and
two blocks away I heard the most uncanny
sound like what is this?
this is heavenly I've never heard such a
thing I couldn't wait I'm getting closer and
closer and outside on the grounds around the
building are people in different groups praising God
and singing in the spirit like nothing I'd
ever seen like so enwrapped around one another
in such fervency women with women and men
with men that something was going forth a
fervency of love in a burning way that
penetrated and those days I was walking through
the conference in some break and I've seen
a woman carrying a girl about 9, 10,
11 years old with her legs dangling like
jelly I don't think she had ever walked
she was born crippled and I've noticed that
little girl and I'm walking through the building
one day and I just passed a women's
prayer circle they were intertwined like a twisted
candle you couldn't tell where one body left
off and the other began they were so
enwrapped with each other and calling out to
God and the little girl was in the
circle in the middle of them I don't
think she was even being explicitly prayed for
and I had hardly gone past the room
when all of a sudden I heard a
shriek but it was not a shriek there
must be another word for it a shriek
suggest horror or something frightening it was a
shriek appeal of delight of unexplicable surprise of
joy unspeakable and I came rushing in to
see what had happened and this little thing
whose legs had been dangling like jelly and
was on her back was standing erect on
her legs and I found out they were
not even explicitly praying for she was healed
in the field of faith that works by
love come on guys we are a long
way from where God would have us to
be obeying the truth of the spirit unto
unfain love of the brethren see that you
love one another with a pure heart fervently
and maybe the absence of the fervency is
the lack of the pure heart and maybe
the lack of the pure heart is the
condescension to questions of sin and conduct and
other kinds of shadowy things that are not
too conspicuous that we somehow swallow down and
live with that doesn't seem to affect anything
it's not registered in our conduct maybe it's
just our thought life or something that we're
contemplating that's a little bit questionable but that's
just all it takes to make something impure
that God intends to be pure that would
then free us to be fervent that's what
the scripture suggests to me but we need
to see that our standards are so beneath
so much less than other than what they
could be what they have been in apostolic
times and what God would again have them
to become and if we live like that
our life would be a sacrament I like
what Oswald Chambers his definition for a saint
a saint is a sacramental personality and I
think in that statement he's summing up all
the kinds of things that I'm suggesting tonight
we'd be on the way to being a
witness unto him not doing witnessing for him
maybe even one day as I suggested was
it last week that we could stand before
the world and make the kind of statement
that Jesus made to his generation if you
see me you see the Father you want
to know what God is like?
take a look at this people you'll not
see it in any single one of them
by themselves but you'll see it in the
extraordinary quality of their relationship you want to
know what God is like?
look at the transparency of this people look
at the unfamed quality of their faith and
their love listen to the way that they
talk to each other listen to the quality
of their voices look at their eyes look
at the self-sacrificial quality of their love
look at the way they extend themselves in
relationship with one another and are willing to
take the risks of love even to exhort
even to rebuke you want to know what
God is like?
look at the revelation of him as is
seen in his whole people if you see
them you see the Father and I think
it was for that reason that the early
church had something to say that has been
lost to us and for which reason the
whole character of our evangelism is something less
they could say to their generation repent for
the kingdom of heaven is at hand it's
visible among you there's already a demonstration that
can be observed there's a piece of heaven
already working in your midst why look at
these Jews knowing what their reputation has been
and their profound individualism and self-centeredness and
disputationism and argumentativeness and all the kinds of
things that have characterized them throughout the generations
but look how they're living look how they're
loving look at the quality of their life
and their relationship the kingdom of heaven is
at hand repent God is waiting for people
who will be able to say it again
and I don't believe that we shall be
able to until we have made the apostolic
standard of blamelessness our own do you have
a heart for that?
will you encourage me?
will you provoke me and exhort me?
will we receive from each other what we
need to be encouraged, to be inspired, to
keep up will we put our thought life
and our private life and the hidden life
as much under the scrutiny of God as
the outward acts will we be careful about
what we allow ourselves to think when we're
free to think whatever we want to think
will we reject thoughts of envy and disdain
and contempt and jealousy will we be through
and through consistently one thing before God and
before men and have consciences undefiled I'm as
far from this as anyone in this room
but I know what's right I know what
God wants and I know that we cannot
have it except by and with each other
it's going to take a determination to be
this kind of church or we're just talking
about a lofty standard that will never be
attained and we shall see therefore increasing victims
to sexual sin to perversion to marital breakdowns
to divorces and remarriages that are already too
much with the body of Christ we have
no alternative I don't believe in blamelessness it's
not a luxury it's the standard of God
he'll give us the grace to attain it
if we will let's pray so Lord with
all apologies for having to be the messenger
of this word and so far from the
attaining of it myself yet not flinching Lord
from things which are needful for all of
our hearing I speak in behalf of this
people and myself and ask mercy Lord mercy
precious God and great grace mercy for our
many offenses against you already even those of
us who have our lives have been circumspect
we've not fornicated we've not cheated on our
wives we've not been guilty of any conspicuous
sin but if our secret and private life
in the thing that was hidden were as
conspicuous and revealed it would be a scandal
and we've allowed ourselves that luxury because somehow
we did not have the sense of God
as Paul had that somehow all things are
transparent to your view and we've allowed ourselves
this mental sensuality of enjoying thoughts that somehow
we thought we could get away with because
we didn't realize that it affected the issue
of purity and that purity affects the issue
of fervency and that the issue of fervency
is the issue of love and that the
issue of love is the issue of truth
and the issue of power and the issue
of the church Lord I ask grace as
we seek precious God to move to the
standard that you're raising before us I ask
that your spirit Lord would show us even
tonight and tomorrow and the days that shall
follow the places where we've cut corners taken
liberties allowed ourselves indulgences joked with the fellows
at the water cooler given ourselves to such
things my God that compromise your truth your
integrity your righteousness if we cannot control the
TV set my God and it's finding an
insidious way into our spirits give us the
courage to pull out the plug or to
carry it out of the house to declare
war on whatever instrument or agency is bringing
such temptation and stress upon us that makes
us to compromise in critical areas precious God
give us a desire to be the kind
of church that you're setting before us and
to be willing for the sacrifices required to
attain it thank you for Paul thank you
for his generation thank you for those who
shall stand blameless in the day of your
appearing who have painfully put away things that
have brought them pleasure for a season that
they might eternally rejoice around the throne of
the Lamb because they could be before him
with a conscience undefiled without regret forever and
ever thank you Lord bless this speaking show
us the practical ways to implement it to
do it to be the hearers and the
doers of your word let it begin even
tonight as much as you give opportunity bring
us my God from faith to faith from
purity to purity