Atlantic States Christian Convocation The
nature and dynamic of ministry and purpose of
the church now and in the morning.
What more can we say?
And how better can we say than more
of thyself?
O show me, hour by hour, more of
thy glory, O my God and Lord, more
of thyself in all thy grace and power,
more of thy love and truth incarnate.
Answer that prayer in this hour, we ask
in the name of the Lord Jesus.
In our concentration of the great transition from
one humanity exposed, discredited, judged
and set aside to another tested, perfected
and installed in glory in our Lord Jesus
Christ, we have come at length the closing
hours of this time together to the all
-governing vision in the light of which this
transition becomes both clear and very practical.
And we saw yesterday that with the Apostle
Paul to whom this vision, this heavenly vision
as he called it, was the secret and
key to his whole life ministry.
When he saw the Lord Jesus risen
and glorified, four things became clear to him
in that vision.
The four things we have mentioned, the place
and destiny of man in the divine economy.
Secondly, the nature and dynamic of ministry in
this dispensation.
Thirdly, the nature and purpose of the church
now and in the after ages.
And fourthly, the immense significance of Christ crucified,
risen and exalted.
In these other three.
Now yesterday, we were occupied with the first
of these four things.
This morning we proceed to the second.
The nature and dynamic of ministry in this
dispensation.
And we're feeling our way along.
Whether we shall get right to the end
of the four is with the Lord.
The nature and dynamic of ministry in this
dispensation.
The Apostle said, it pleased God to reveal
his son in me that I might preach
him among the nations.
Now we must stay for a moment to
ask and answer one question.
What do we mean by ministry?
I think we need a revised version on
this matter of ministry.
Immediately the word ministry is mentioned.
People's minds think of someone perhaps with a
Bible in their hand, standing up and teaching
out of the Bible or someone preaching the
gospel to the unsaved.
Someone having been shut up with their Bible,
studying it and making some notes and coming
out into the public and giving the results
of their Bible study.
Something like that is usually associated of mine
with the word ministry.
It may be that here this morning when
I speak of ministry in this dispensation, some
of your minds at once think of something
with Bible in hand from a platform or
in a group, a circle, teaching, preaching.
I hope the Lord is going to upset
that idea entirely before we're through.
Well the New Testament of course does have
two things to say about this matter of
ministry.
It does speak about special personal gifts for
ministry in the church.
He gave, the Ascended Lord gave some apostles,
some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers.
These are specific personal ministry gifts in the
church.
Put a circle around that word in.
Get your mentality adjusted again over that.
You'll see what I mean in a minute.
There are these personal ministry gifts in the
church.
But the New Testament has much more to
say about the ministry of the church itself.
And it does say that these personal gifts
in the church are for the purpose of
enabling the church to fulfill the ministry, to
do the ministry, to be the minister of
Christ.
You remember the passage and he gave some
apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and
teachers for the perfecting of the saints unto
the work of the ministry.
Don't put any break there in your sentence.
The perfecting of the church, the making complete
that is, of the church unto the work
of the ministry.
I heard Dr. Campbell Morgan once say in
this very connection, this passage, and God help
the minister whose church does not fulfill the
ministry.
And it is in that second that we
are occupied this morning.
I'm not going to talk about apostles, prophets,
evangelists, pastors, teachers, these specific ministries, but about
the ministry of the church.
And you know that the two letters with
which we have been mainly occupied this week,
two letters to the Corinthians have in view
and very clearly and emphatically so the ministry
of the church.
All that the apostle is saying is with
this background of the fulfillment of the divine
ministry in Corinth.
And as those letters are a vehicle down
through the whole dispensation to our own time,
it's what the Holy Spirit is saying to
the church about its ministry.
In the first letter, the apostle is dealing
with all those things which either frustrate or
spoil the ministry of the church.
In the second letter, he comes out very
much more clearly and emphatically on the matter
of the ministry as he uses these words,
seeing then that we have this ministry.
And you must remember that the apostle is
writing to a church, a local church.
He is not just talking about his own
ministry.
He has much to say about that.
But he is speaking of the church's ministry.
And the we, the we is the church
at Corinth.
We have this ministry.
And you know the associated phrase, we have
this treasure in vessels of fragile clay.
Is that only apostles?
No, it's all of us.
We come to that again presently.
So what we are really concerned with this
morning is the ministry of all believers or
the ministry of the church.
Having said that, we can proceed to a
consideration of the nature and the dynamics of
ministry.
I'm once more referring to the apostle, the
particular apostle who is writing these letters.
Just remember that he is a representative or
example minister.
That is how he speaks of himself through
these letters.
What was true of him as to ministry,
he was saying has got to be true
of the church.
He didn't put it in this way, but
this is very clearly what he is saying.
What is true in my ministry as to
its source and its nature and its power
has to be true of all believers and
of the church.
He is a representative minister, not an exclusive
one.
He may have dimensions beyond anyone else's, but
that is just his representative character.
The Lord is saying by this man that
here you have an example of what ministry
is and how ministry is produced and what
are the principles and laws of ministry and
inclusively what is the background of ministry.
That is how you must look at the
apostle as a group minister, quite true, but
as in principles a representative minister.
In principles a representative minister.
And he begins, as it all began here,
he goes right back to the Damascus road
to the beginning of his Christian life and
ministry for you will remember that it was
there, there right at the commencement when the
Lord met him on his way to Damascus
that the Lord gave him his commission to
whom I send it, whom I send it.
And he goes right back to his conversion
to the beginning of his life in union
with Christ and he says this, As to
life, as to vocation, ministry, that I might
proclaim him among the nations, God revealed his
son in me.
Now you've got the source of everything.
It is this vision of the Lord Jesus.
That is the nature of the ministry.
That is the source of the ministry.
That is the dynamic of all true ministry.
That is all true ministry in this dispensation.
This dispensation issues and proceeds from an enshining
of divine light revealing Jesus Christ.
It pleased God to reveal his son in
me.
That gives us a secret.
Oh yes, Saul of Tarsus is on the
way to Damascus and on the way he
saw a light from heaven.
Objective, objective.
Something that blinded him from without.
That light turned out to be the glorified
Lord Jesus.
And Paul is saying here in this fragment
to the Galatians that he not only objectively
saw that light and that glorified man, something
happened inside of him.
Inside of him, he says, Jesus of Nazareth,
whom I am on the way to persecute
and whose persecution has become the one passion
of my life, Jesus of Nazareth, that imposter,
as I believe, that evil man, that deceiver,
that carriage hooded, an overwhelming significance.
He has been here amongst us, walking the
streets of Jerusalem, of Galilee, up and down
the country.
That same one has now appeared to me.
Same one, not a different one, only in
appearance and in knowledge, but the same one.
What does this mean?
The way to the desert he went.
And it is, dwell upon this.
And that light which had shone on him
was shining in him.
He was seeing, seeing the significance of whom?
God's Son, oh yes, quite true.
But no, Jesus of Nazareth glorified the man.
The man having reached the ultimate of God's
intention for man.
That's what it's about, because I knew him
as a man.
Whether I saw him in the flesh or
not, that's it.
I knew him, all about him as a
man amongst men.
Human eyes could not discriminate between him and
other men, only there was something about him
that was different.
But he's a man amongst men.
And this is that same man, transfigured.
He had to think in the light of
that inward revelation.
People who know the Greek here know that
this word, it pleads God to reveal his
Son in me.
The word is the subjective objective.
Is that too technical?
Yes, I saw objectively, but I also saw
subjectively.
And until that happens, dear friend, we're not
in the way of effectual ministry.
You may be seeing by what is said
to you throughout this week, you may see
in a sort of objective way.
Everything, objectively, oh yes, oh yes, that's very
wonderful, very wonderful.
But has it broken through from the objective
to the subjective and you say, I've worked,
I've never seen it like this, I've never
seen him.
And that's it.
That is what happened to the Apostle and
it was, I say, the beginning of his
Christian life and of his ministry and they
both went together.
You got that?
Do you know that you as a believer,
as a Christian, are constituted for ministry from
the day of your new birth?
That you are ordained a minister the moment
you are regenerated into this new humanity.
Understand that?
Don't wait for the day when someone will
ordain you for ministry.
No, no, no, no.
Your calling from the beginning is unto ministry.
It may be difficult to swallow, but we'll
go on.
Paul said about this that it was, it
corresponded to what happened at the creation.
And such a wealth there is here, you
never hope to even touch it.
He said, thank you Corinthians, now the great
letter of the ministry.
God, who said, who said, let there be
light, let light be, has repeated that divine
spirit in a spiritual way in our hearts,
has shined into our hearts.
Has said in these darkened human hearts, let
light be.
Shined into our hearts with what object?
To give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of
Jesus Christ.
For those of you who have heard this
before and heard me say it before, bear
with me as I just say it, for
this moment with that word glory.
Oh yes, it was objective glory for Saul
of Tarsus, he saw.
But what is that glory?
What is the glory of God?
We've been hearing in the second session about
the God of glory appearing to Abraham.
What is the glory of God?
The glory of God is his absolute satisfaction
with anyone or any situation.
When God is satisfied, something emanates from him.
You know that in simple ways in Christian
experience?
If there's something over which you may have
had a battle, a real battle, you've got
through to what the Lord has been trying
to get you to, and the battle is
over, and you're responsive wholly to the will
of God, what happens?
Oh, such a sense of blessedness inside, isn't
it?
The fight is finished, the battle is over.
There's rest and peace and joy within, that's
death and now.
That's glory.
Because it's on the way to that ultimate
accomplishment of the whole will of God in
a humanity, when the glory will be universal,
God is satisfied.
You see, the glory of God in the
face of Jesus Christ just means this.
The Lord Jesus was so satisfying to the
very nature of God, that there was about
him something of peace and rest and joy,
carried with him the satisfaction of God.
I do always those things which are pleased.
That's the glory.
Don't think of glory just as this object
is shining, blazing something.
Think of it shining into your heart.
It's in the face of Jesus Christ, that
is.
Oh, how can I explain it?
I want a morning on this alone.
It is just this.
That inside, we've come to the place where
we are satisfied with the Lord Jesus and
meet the satisfaction of God.
Isn't that it?
Not what I am, but what thou art.
That, that alone can be my soul's true
rest.
Thy love, not mine.
That's glory.
St. Paul says, God carried out this new
spirit in my heart, in your hearts, Corinthians.
He shone in.
He said, let light be.
And there was light.
But it was a light that was never
on land or sea.
The light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus.
Now that, I say, is the spring of
ministry.
The spring of ministry.
What is it?
What is the ministry?
What do you mean by ministry?
Get your revised version now, mentally, about this.
Ministry is the outshining of Jesus Christ from
our life.
That's all.
You don't need to have complications.
You don't need to have any artificial or
mechanical means.
You may study a Bible and you may
give the most wonderfully organized and arranged Bible
readings, but the question is, is that ministry?
Or are you emanating Christ?
Are you translating Christ?
Is Christ coming through?
Are people sensing Christ?
Not your study.
Not your library.
Not your commentaries.
Not your versions.
Not your translations.
Which so many keep always in view, and
you know where it came from.
There was a preacher who was always quoting
without giving the source of his quotation.
This book, that book, this authority, that authority.
And there was a man sitting in front
of him who knew it all, knew where
he got it from.
And every time he made a quotation, he
gave the author.
But that's not all.
The preacher got so annoyed with this man,
he said, I do wish you would be
quiet.
And the man said, himself.
Well, if we're laughing at ourselves, it's all
right.
You see the point?
Where has this come from?
Where did we get it?
How did we get it?
I'm not saying Bible study is wrong.
But I'm saying, through it all, has Christ
appeared?
And is he appearing?
And you may be a preacher, a Bible
teacher of renown, and it may stop there.
The question is, whether I'm officially that, or
just a humble member of Christ, without any
public gift at all, without any human ordination,
I can be ministering Christ.
In some way, ministering Christ.
And that's the ministry.
That's the ministry.
That, I say, is the source of the
ministry.
And the apostle is making it that.
It began in me.
And it's going on in me.
And all that I have to say to
you, you believers, is what I am seeing
of the Lord Jesus, growing inward, unveiling of
God.
Now, how does, that's the source of the
ministry.
That's the source of all ministry, from beginning
to end.
How does the ministry grow, proceed?
And this, these letters, and especially the second
letter to the Corinthians, is going to touch
us quite deeply, acutely, I think, on this
matter.
The procedure of ministry, the growth of ministry.
How?
More study?
More books?
Is it?
Oh no.
Oh no, dear friends.
That's not the way of growing, continuing ministry.
And ministry has got to grow all the
time.
Deepen and enlarge all the time.
How, would you please?
Not just at this moment, but again, pick
up your second letter to the Corinthians.
And before you have got very far, indeed,
almost immediately, you're in that letter, you come
on some words, which are repeated, repeated, again
and again.
What are they?
Affliction, consolation, affliction, consolations.
Underline those words.
Right at the beginning of the second letter.
And in that connection, the apostle brings forth
his own great experience.
I would have you know what befell so
great a death.
We had the sentence that it was death.
We despaired of life.
We were pressed out of our measure.
Then right through that letter, the apostle is
constantly striking that note of sufferings, sufferings, sufferings.
We have this treasure, which is this ministry,
the revelation of Jesus Christ in our heart,
we have it in vessels, and I like
the literal translation, of fragile clay, capable of
being broken and smashed, beyond our measure of
endurance, even unto despair, we despair of life.
And then he'll give us a couple of
catalogues of his afflictions.
My, you ought to sit down and think
about death, if you're thinking about ministry.
All that he himself met, encountered, and went
through, from center to circumference, at the center,
at the center, was unfaithful, disloyal, and treacherous
brethren.
Moving out from that center, in every large
and circles, the many implications in this letters
were the statement of what people were saying
about him.
He wasn't a true apostle.
He's not one of the twelve.
He never saw Jesus after the resurrection.
He's not a true apostle.
He is an imposter.
He is a deceiver.
As deceiving, remember, as deceiving, and yet, and
yet, he is the, just going round, cadging.
This is implied, they're getting money from Christians,
as poor, yet making many rich.
See, all these are implications, a whole list
of them.
And if any man, if any man has
suffered, I more than them all, then he
speaks of the many times he was in
prison, how many times he was, he received
the stripes, how many times he was in
the deep, and shipwrecked, and in the deep,
how many times he was in hunger, and
in nakedness, and in peril.
See, man, robbers, and fellow Christians.
It's a terrible double list that he gives
in these chapters of 2 Corinthians.
Read them again.
No wonder that word has such a large
place at the beginning, the afflictions of Christ
which abound unto us, that the confirmation is
awful.
That's the ministry.
That's how it goes on.
You say, how, how am I to be
a minister?
How can I be an effectual minister?
How can my ministry grow?
I will tell you this.
It will not be by your running around
trying to get open doors for ministry.
It will not be by your telling, talking
about yourself and what you've got with, you
know, that thought behind, this will open a
way for me.
Oh, that's not a very pleasant realm, is
it?
No, not that way.
How will the ministry grow, proceed, deepen and
become more fruitful?
Will you?
Will you dare to really say to the
Lord, Lord, make my life a ministry of
Christ?
Will you dare?
I wonder if you're going out of the
ministry now.
Going to withdraw, resign.
Believe me, dear friends, if the apostle is
representative, and if those servants of God who
have been most spiritually fruitful, not who have
done the biggest organizations, but the most spiritually
fruitful, we'll touch that at another point in
a minute.
If these are really true ministers of Jesus
Christ, look at the background of their life,
the secret sufferings, that hidden history with God
under his hand.
Those periods when even a man like this
man, Paul, perhaps the greatest minister that Christ
ever had, will say, I despaired.
I despaired of life.
I was pressed beyond my measure of endurance.
That's how the ministry grows.
If you're going to be a true minister
of Christ, ministering Christ, he's going to take
you into some deep experiences.
There is an experience that you will discover
something that is going to be of great
value to others.
Great value to others.
It is the crucified and suffering servant of
God who is really the fruitful one.
Of whom you can say, that man is
not talking out of his library from his
books, that man knows what he's talking about,
he's been there.
He has been in it.
This has come out of the travail of
his soul.
That's how the ministry grows.
Read 2 Corinthians again.
In the light of that, it grows.
Oh, I say these things to you, but
God only knows how I hold my breath.
We do know.
If the Lord has done anything at all,
so little, so little, it's been by a
hard way.
It's been by a hard way.
The afflictions of Christ that we might know
the consolations of Christ.
And what do people want?
Information or consolation?
I know what your answer is over there.
I want you to notice that this is
something terrific in the whole cosmic realm.
But after all, dear friend, ministry is not
just limited to the people to amongst whom
we move.
This kind of ministry, and you may not
appreciate the word, is cosmic ministry.
What do I mean?
Well, I mean this.
The God of this age has blinded the
minds of the unbelieving, left as a precaution,
as a move, a strategic move, left the
light of the knowledge of the glory of
God should shine upon them.
If our gospel is hid, it is hid
in them that are perishing, in whom the
God of this age.
What is such a ministry?
It is the undoing of that devilish work
of spiritual blindness.
Oh, spiritual blindness is not just natural, it's
satanic.
And you've got to have something that strikes
there beyond the merely natural conditions.
Strikes right home to the source of that
condition.
He has blinded.
He is the God of this world.
And the trouble at Corinth, the trouble at
Corinth, as the whole of the first letter
shows, is that the world has laid its
deadly paralyzing hand upon those people.
The world, do remember, dear friend, do remember
this, and it's a tremendous thing to say,
but it is true that the old humanity
lies under a curse.
That sound strong?
But have you never said this, a cursed
self?
It's this accursed self that's in the way
all the time.
Perhaps you do not use strong language like
that, but that's what it is, isn't it?
Oh, yes, that humanity lies under a curse
from the beginning.
And this world lies under a curse.
It lies under a curse, which means that
that humanity and this world can never go
through to God's end as it is.
The end of that humanity and of this
world is what?
Destruction, removal, right from the face of God.
Paul saw this controlling influence, the world of
Corinth had come into the church of Corinth.
In its mentality, its manner and procedure, how
the world does it, how the world does
it.
What does the world do?
Well, let somebody do somebody else wrong, and
that wrong person is away to the court
to get his rights.
That's how the world does it.
That was Corinth.
So I could go on.
Oh, yes, our natural man lies under a
curse.
Our old humanity lies under a curse.
It cannot, because God has put his veto
on it.
It cannot receive the things of veto.
And this world is vetoed as to God's
things.
And who has done it?
The God of this age, prince of this
world.
And when God breaks in, I don't know
whether Pember is right or wrong.
I think there's a lot of truth in
what he says that the condition that we
find at the beginning of the book of
Genesis, darkness, the chaos, and so on, was
a judgment upon a former creation.
Well, if you like that, all right.
But God said, let there be light, because
darkness is not of God, it's of the
devil.
And here we have it in the spiritual
part.
He has blinded, the God of this age,
blinded and brought into darkness this old humanity.
And when God says, let there be light,
the work of the devil is undone, but
judgment is removed.
And that should be the effect of ministry.
The ministry of Christ should be out of
darkness into light.
And you remember, you remember the commission to
the apostle at the beginning, just a little
secret.
The first sermon that ever I preached was
on these words, to whom I send them,
to turn them from darkness to light.
That's the right translation, not that, no, rather
that's the wrong translation.
The right is that they may turn from
darkness to light and from the power of
Satan unto God, that they may receive an
inheritance.
This is ministry.
The turning from darkness to light, from the
power of Satan unto God, to have an
inheritance which they lost in Adam, this very
fool.
That should be the impact and influence of
our presence as ministers of Christ.
You know, when he was present, he did
say a lot of things.
He did preach, mostly to his disciples, preparing
them for their work ahead.
But it was not only what he said.
If it was as much what he said
as it was his personal presence, he would
come somewhere.
He hadn't said anything.
When demons cried out, I know thee whom
thou art, the Holy One of God, they
could not hold their peace.
His presence drank.
His very presence was an exposure of man,
an exposure of Satan, his presence.
And that is the ministration of Christ, O
Lord, make us ministers.
Make me a minister as far as I
can bear it.
That the impact, the impact of registration, the
influence of people moving into the light, moving
into the light, really seeing the light in
an inward way, are the light not of
truth, or even of scripture to begin with,
but through the light of Jesus Christ.
That's all I have time to say this
morning about ministry, unless I add this word
again from Corinthians.
The test of ministry is in its eternal
value.
Now the apostle associates the two things, affliction
and eternal value.
He says, our light affliction, which is but
for a moment, worketh for us far more
exceeding an eternal weight of glory, while, now
don't stop there, get your conjunction, while we
look not at the things which are seen,
but at the things which are not seen.
For the things which are seen are temporal,
passing, transient, but the things which are not
seen are eternal.
The test of our ministry is perhaps not
going to be what we see in our
own lifetime, but what is afterward, going on
for eternity.
Don't you want, when you get to glory,
to discover that you meant far more than
you knew you did?
There's a great deal more value in your
being here than ever you saw.
Oh, this soul life of the old humanity
does want to see.
It's always doing things to see.
See the results, see, while we look not
at the things which are seen.
I think this is one of the most
testing words in the Bible to the old
man, isn't it?
How can we live on what is not
seen and what is in the eternal future,
and be satisfied?
That's not the old humanity, but it is
the new.
The eternal man.
Now I'll go on for a little while
to the next.
The nature and purpose of the church, now
and in the ages afterward.
That's big, isn't it?
And here again we need a revised version.
A revised version of what we mean when
we speak of the church.
I suppose few men have talked and written
more about the church than I have.
But on this very thing, I find that
I am being forced, forced to a revision.
Not to abandon what has been said, taught,
and believed, and acted upon.
But as we go on, a great deal
that we did at the beginning of what
we called our church teaching, a great deal
has, shall I say, broken down.
Well, what are you finding about the church
today?
Begin with, you may be saying, where is
it?
And looking around everywhere, is this the church?
God help us.
This doesn't come up to Ephesians.
Far from it.
It's very much more like Corinthians.
What is it?
What is its function now, and in the
ages to come?
Because, you know, Paul always links those two.
Unto him be the glory in the church
and in Christ Jesus through all ages forever
and ever.
Function of the church afterward, as well as
now.
Well, of course there are various symbols of
the church.
Church is called the house of God.
It is called a temple.
It is called the body of Christ.
It is called the bride.
So on.
Are these different things?
No.
There are only aspects of one thing.
Each of those definitions or designations or titles
is only a functionary aspect of the church.
House of God.
House of God, place where he lives.
Temple of God, where he is worshipped.
Body of Christ, the vessel of a personality.
Should I grammatically say this is not I?
No.
The I is inside.
A lodger for the time being.
The I will go.
Body will stay.
Body of Christ, a function.
A many-sided function of the expression of
the personality.
That's all.
It's an aspect.
The bride, not some other entity.
As some people teach.
Not some other entity.
Only expression of the affectional relationship.
Christ loved the church.
Gave himself for it.
So ought husbands to love their wives.
The affectional relationship between Christ and his church.
These are symbols of the one thing.
Of which these are but aspects.
That's what we've got to come to.
Our revision of mentality has to take place.
What is the inclusive designation?
You have it in Ephesians, which is of
course the great church letter.
He has broken down the middle wall of
partition.
Between Jew and Gentile, racial, human, divisions, compartments.
He's removed the division and has made of
the twain what?
One new man.
Got it now?
The inclusive designation is a man.
One new man.
A new humanity.
You understand what I mean when you have
to have your mentality revised?
How many people say on Sunday morning we
are going to the house of God?
What do you mean?
We're going to church.
What do you mean?
This is traditional Christianity.
The way it's gone you see.
Oh we all say these things.
It's the way it's talked about.
But it's a mentality.
What is the church?
It is the aggregate of new creation people.
Men and women, Jews, Gentiles, everything.
Not remaining as they are naturally, Jews and
Gentiles and so on and so on.
But just one new man.
One new humanity.
That is the church.
And what humanity is it?
That touches on the function doesn't it?
There's the nature.
Oh do take this dear friends.
Do take this to heart.
What is God doing?
What is he after?
Is he after making a new institution called
the church?
A new ecclesiasticism?
Something that has a denominator amongst men?
The, may I, the Baptist church?
The Methodist church?
The Presbyterian church?
What a contradiction in terms.
Any of them.
Pentecostal church.
I must say these things in order really
to get this revision through.
This mental revision.
This heart revision.
Is God doing that?
Is that what God is doing?
Not a bit of it.
He's not in it at all.
He's only with the people.
Not with the thing.
But God is doing in this spiritual way
what he did at the beginning.
He is saying and proceeding.
Proceeding with his concept.
Let us make man.
The church is the one new man.
Let us make a man.
Not an institution.
Or any of these things that the church
is called.
No, let us make a man.
Because that's what he's doing with you and
with me.
He's not trying to make of us any
of these many things.
Christians are called and named by which they
go.
He's just getting to work on us to
constitute us the man.
You remember what we said at the beginning?
He called them man and woman.
He called them man.
Here, in this, and sisters be careful how
you take what I'm going to say now.
There is neither male nor female.
How that is used today.
But I say, no, here it's a man.
That is, it's a humanity.
It's a humanity.
I can't explain to you because I don't
know what that humanity is going to be
afterward in glory.
Jesus answering a question about marriage and repeated
marriages.
Whose wife, a certain woman, a certain man
would have out of all he'd married afterward.
Jesus said, ye do err in the resurrection.
They neither marry nor are given in marriages.
But I'll ask the angel.
Well, that gets me out of my depth.
But you see, it's a kind of humanity
that's different.
That's different.
All the questions will arrive.
Shall I know my husband in heaven?
Shall I know my wife in heaven?
All right.
Wrestle with that if you like.
But we shall know.
In a way in which it's far better
to know.
However precious may have been the human relationship.
Husband, wife, wife and husband.
Here precious.
Very precious.
Oh, isn't it better when a husband and
wife know each other in the spirit than
in the flesh?
At the best.
Oh, isn't it lovely when they flow together?
I'm sorry for any man whose wife does
not flow together with him and be his
help.
Meet.
Really helping him but is all the time
trying to draw things to herself.
Or the other way around.
To flow together.
By one spirit.
One vision.
One objective.
That their united lives will manifest Jesus Christ.
In the home and in the neighborhood.
There's something very precious about that, you know.
I had a son.
The Lord took three or four years ago.
He was my son.
As my son.
Well, we had a good relationship.
There was no strife between us as father
and son.
Son and father, difficult to talk.
But, but he and I had such spiritual
fellowship that I could open my heart to
him as fully as I could to anybody.
And more than to most people.
He was not only my son.
He was my spiritual friend.
You know what I'm talking about.
That's how we're going to know.
And it'll be a better kind of knowing.
Don't worry then.
Oh, you will.
Then shall I know.
Even as I have been known by the
Lord.
Let's get on.
The vocation of the church now and in
eternity is going to be just the emanation
of Christ.
The emanation of Christ.
It is now intended to be that.
God help us and help the so-called
church.
Oh, it is not this and that and
one or more of a hundred things that
are the idea about the church today.
It all, it is all boiled down to
this one thing.
The presence of a different kind of man
in the individual and collectively.
Taking it universally.
Are you not impressed with how Peter, having
passed through the great transition from the old
Jewish humanity, has got right through after his
battles with the Gentiles, Caesarea and Cornelius' house.
After his battle down at Antioch, well, when
James and the elders came down to Jerusalem,
he withdrew himself from eating with the Gentiles.
The simulation, Paul called it.
When he got through it all, thank God
Peter got through it all.
What did he say?
Opening his letter, wonderful, to the saints scattered
throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia and Athenia.
Ying, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Athenia.
You are all scattered.
The dispersion has taken place and you are
all scattered you saints and yet you are
a spiritual house.
One house.
Not so many houses, one house everywhere.
What is this?
It is where the Lord is dwelling in
men and women, in men and women.
The church universal according to the divine concept
is just one man in the earth.
It is wonderful, isn't it, how we discover
that when we meet somebody we have never
met before and they are the Lord's.
Until you begin to ask or they begin
to ask what you belong to, you just
begin to talk about things of the Lord,
oh, one man, one blessed man.
Well, that is very elementary, isn't it?
It is very simple, but that is what
the church is universally, that is what the
church is locally, locally.
People come in to the local company, they
don't come in and say, well, this is
how they behave, this is what they do,
they have baptism, they have the Lord's table
and they have this form of worship.
No, these things may be alright, they may
have their place, they may be a part
of a divine order, but what is it
they are to meet?
Not our baptism, not our Lord's table, not
our method of procedure, not our technique, God
is in this place, they meet the Lord.
They may not be able to put it
like that, they may not be able to
define it, explain it, but the impress is
something there.
Well, these people have got life, these people
are in the good of something that you
won't find anywhere else, that I haven't found
anywhere else, so we put it that way,
it's the Lord.
Oh, that all our local companies were just
like that, whatever way we go on, the
thing that impresses, the Lord is here, the
Lord is here.
I've moved from the universal to the local
company, I'm going to move down to the
individual, to the Corinthians, the apostles say, don't
you know your bodies are a temple of
the Holy Spirit who dwells in you?
I am a microcosm of the church, or
intended to be a microcosm of the church.
What is it?
What is true of the universal?
It's true in my case, it's Christ that
people, when they meet me, need I say
any more this morning?
I think that's enough.
Very much more of course could be said.
Time has gone, it's enough, I can say
more in a half an hour than you
can live out in a life, but here
it is.
What broke upon this man Paul's heart was
not something that he studied up, read up,
worked out in his mind, he saw Jesus
as Lord.
And all this, all this, and I'll say
this, you don't know anything about the church
if you haven't seen Jesus Christ, however much
you've read and talked about it, if you
have not seen him, you don't know what
the church is, if you have seen him.
And he is a lifetime of seeing, you
see him, you begin to see and go
on to see what the church really is.
It's not a thing and it, it is
a him, it is a person who is
dwelling in persons, that's the church.
Make the truth live in us.
Oh Lord, may that divine fear take place,
light shine into our hearts, the eyes of
our understanding be enlightened, we may see light
in thy light, for thy name and glory
and satisfaction, Amen.