Address—C. Hendricks
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Turn with me this afternoon to 1 John 1.
First Epistle of John, chapter 1.
Verse 5.
This, then, is the message which we have heard of him.
And declare unto you.
That God is light.
And in him.
Is no darkness at all.
If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness.
We lie and do not the truth.
But if we walk in the light.
As he is in the light.
We have fellowship one with another.
And the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us.
From all sin.
And in the 4th chapter.
Verse 7.
Beloved.
Let us love one another for lovers of God.
And everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God.
He that loveth not knoweth not God.
For God is love.
These two statements.
From the 1St and the 4th chapter of this epistle.
Tell us what God is in himself.
God is light.
And God is love.
Righteousness, holiness, majesty, truth are all attributes of God.
But love and light are what He is in himself.
And what I have before me this afternoon.
Is to, with the Lord's help, to try to impart.
A sense to each of us.
That God.
As light and love.
Has been fully.
Revealed.
In the person of the son.
I have found in my life and I'm sure that.
Many of you, if not all, can relate to this.
That many of the difficulties we have in our Christian lives.
Is trying to pit the one against the other.
Sometimes we act in love.
Sometimes we act in faithfulness.
On the principle of holiness.
And we divorced the two as though they are.
In the person of the son.
Manifested down here in this world.
Which was the perfect manifestation of God.
In the Lord Jesus.
We see light and love in everything he did and said.
In every step that he took.
You cannot have the one without the other.
Because that's what God is.
And he was the perfect manifestation down here.
Of God himself.
They sang We sang that 61St hymn, and it's the only hymn of its kind in the book.
How precious.
The Person of the Christ.
The one who was human and divine.
And we see that one down here.
In this world.
I really have before me.
What is Christianity?
What is Christianity?
Well, let's read a verse in Exodus 20 to get the contrast of it.
And then we'll turn back to first John 1.
In Exodus 20, when the law was given.
Verse 18.
And all the people saw the thundering.
And the lightnings and the noise of the trumpet.
And the mountain smoking. And when the people saw it, they removed and stood afar off.
And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear, but let not God speak with us, lest we die.
And Moses said unto the people, Fear not, for God has come to prove you.
And that he may fear, and that his fear may be before your faces, that you sin not.
Now notice. And the people stood afar off.
And Moses drew near unto the thick darkness.
Where God was.
And this is what really characterized the giving of the law.
It placed man at a distance.
The people stood afar off.
They could never draw near.
And God dwelt in the thick darkness.
And Moses approached to that. Now let's contrast that with 1 John chapter 1.
Verse 7.
In this seventh verse, 1 John 1.
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Really gives us.
Precious truths of Christianity.
The first, there are three things stated in that verse 1. John 17 says if we walk in the light as he is in the light.
We just read that when the law was given, God dwelt in the thick darkness.
But he's not dwelling in the thick darkness today.
He is in the light.
And we walk in the light of his presence.
We walk in the light as he has been pleased to reveal himself to us.
It's where we walk, not how we walk, which is the point in John's epistle.
What is stated in verse 7 is true of every believer.
From the youngest babe to the most mature father in Christ.
It's true regardless of what our state of soul is.
If we're truly the Lord's.
We walk in the light as He is in the light.
It's the light.
Of the full, complete revelation of God in the Person of the Son.
As he is in the light.
The Lord Jesus.
Come here as light and love.
To make the Father, as we've had it before us in our readings, known to us.
And when God was fully revealed by the sun, he was revealed as the Father.
That's who he is.
The Father.
And we sang that second hymn.
Because if the Father is going to bless us.
According to the thoughts of his own heart.
And according to what he is himself as light and love.
He must bring us.
Into the place of blessing that he's brought us into.
Nothing else would satisfy his own heart of love.
And he had to remove.
Again, as we've had before us in the readings.
He had to remove all that stood against us.
So that we could be in the light.
In the full light of His holy presence.
In perfect peace.
In perfect rest.
That's Christianity.
We've been brought.
By the love of God.
Into the very light of his presence.
And we walk there.
If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.
And the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.
We have three main distinctive characteristic features of Christianity.
We walk in the light.
As God is in the light, that's where we walk.
We have fellowship one with another. This is the result of it if you're in the light.
And your brother and sister is in the light, and I am in the light, and that's where we walk.
We are made fit for it by the last expression that is stated in that verse, the blood of Jesus Christ his Son.
Cleanseth us from all sin.
This is a young people's meeting.
And.
I don't think I could do any greater service for you.
Than to bring you into the conscious realization.
Of where you are as a Christian.
And what you are as a Christian.
You are one who by the precious blood of Christ.
Has been so has been so perfectly cleansed of every stain of sin.
That you are fitted now for the very light of his holy Presence.
And to walk there.
To walk there as God is there.
In Fellowship.
The the the second thing that stated one with another for if you're under the precious blood of Christ.
And I am under the precious blood of Christ, and we are walking in the light.
And as one has so beautifully said it.
The light, The brighter the light shines upon me, the cleaner the blood shows me to be.
As fit for the presence of God.
Now nothing else, when we think of it, nothing else could suit the heart of God.
He must bring us, if I may state it that way, reverently. He must bring us. If He's going to bless us according to His own heart of love, He must bring us.
Into his own presence.
Our brother stated it today. If he needed more servants, he could create them in a moment.
But all he wants to surround himself with children.
Sons and.
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He's given us in order to bring us into that.
He's given us eternal life. Now I just like to read.
The first verses.
Of this chapter and make a few comments.
¤ John 11.
These first verses are Speaking of our precious Lord.
That which was from the beginning.
Which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes.
Which we have looked upon in our hands, have handled of the word of life.
For the life was manifested.
And we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father.
And was manifested unto us.
That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father.
And with his Son Jesus Christ, these things rightly unto you, that your joy may be full.
There isn't anything.
More blessed.
Than what we have here.
Here we have the beginning.
Of Christianity.
In a man on earth now I know as a fact it didn't begin until he rose from the dead.
And was seated at the right hand of God, and sent down the Spirit on the day of Pentecost.
That, as to time, was the beginning of Christianity.
But.
The one.
Whose life?
Has been imparted to you and to me.
Was here as a man.
When he came into this world.
When he was born of the virgin.
That eternal life that was with the Father came down in the person of the eternal Son.
And that life was lived out in a man.
Though he were Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.
And if you want to know what the life is that you have received when you receive the Son?
You have to read the four gospels and you have to trace the pathway of the Son of God, become a man down here in this world. For that's where the life has been manifested in all its perfection. If you look at me, you won't see that life in perfection. Oh, there's so many blemishes. And if I look at you, I'll see faults and failures. But if we want to see the life that we've received.
Imparted to us by grace.
Sovereign grace, that eternal life which we have in Christ.
We look at the sun, we look at it as he was down here and John says we've heard him.
We've seen him with our eyes. We've contemplated him.
We've even handled him the word of life.
Life was manifested and we have seen it, John says. And we report to you that eternal life that was with the Father and was manifested to us.
Now the condition of the life in him when he was here below was a man.
Isn't what the life is in itself.
The life in itself is himself.
1 John 520 says he is the true God and eternal life.
The form that the life has taken, whether it be in humiliation as a man below, or in glory as a man at the right hand of God.
The condition of the life is not the life itself.
We're going to have it in the condition.
According to God's eternal thoughts and purposes, glorified with a man in heaven, we're going to have it. We're on our way to that. We now have it in a hostile world where everything is opposed to that life.
But we still have it because we have the sun.
But what is that life like in all its moral features, in all its beauty, in all its excellence?
It is the perfect blending and display of light and love.
Manifested in that blessed man down here.
Turn, for instance, to John 3.
John, Chapter 3.
Verse 14.
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
There you have the basis upon which God can communicate that life.
As the Son of Man lifted up on the cross, for God so loved the world.
That He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Here you have the love of God told out and expressed and manifested in the sun down here. And then in verse 19 you have and this is the condemnation that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.
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Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.
You find over and over again. Now turn back to 1 John and we'll look at a few more scriptures in the second chapter.
Every time.
That life is spoken of in manifestation in the Lord Jesus.
Or in us, there's always light in love.
Or some.
Characteristics which flow from them that are mentioned Notice in one John 2.
Verse 9 He that saith He is in the light.
And Hateth his brother.
The very opposite of love is in darkness, even until now.
He that loveth his brother abideth in the light.
And there is none occasion of stumbling in him.
But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness.
And knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.
So you have hatred and darkness going together.
And you have light and love being put together and as we trace the pathway of the Lord Jesus.
We see the expression of what God is in himself, love and light. One has said it this way.
God, in the essence of his being, is light.
God, in the activity of His nature, is love, and we express that in one of our hymns.
His every act pure blessing, is his path on sullied light.
And so when he acts, he acts in blessing because he is love.
And his path is always.
Unsullied Light again in the 3rd chapter. First John.
He says in verse 14, We know that we have passed from death unto life.
Because we love the brethren.
He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.
Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer.
And you know that. No murderer.
Hath eternal life.
Abiding.
In him.
Light and love always put together. Turn to Ephesians 5 and we see it again expressed so beautifully.
Ephesians 5.
This time from the pen of the Apostle Paul.
Verse one.
Be therefore followers of God as dear children, and walk in love.
As Christ also hath loved us.
And has given himself for us an offering and the sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour.
Verse 8.
For ye were sometimes darkness.
But now are ye light in the Lord walk as children of light.
For the fruit of the Spirit.
Another translation renders that the fruit of the light.
Is in all goodness and righteousness and truth, proving what is acceptable unto the Lord, and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.
But rather reprove them.
Now Paul speaks of walking.
According to the light that we've been placed in.
John's point is more where we walk.
What is the Christian position?
We walk in the light as He is in the light, and the result of that is fellowship one with another.
Now Satan will do everything that he can to disrupt and upset that sweet, precious fellowship, Christian fellowship.
And of course, the eternal efficacy of the blood, The blood of Jesus Christ his Son, cleanseth us.
From all sin, it's the blood that makes us fit for the light, and it's being in the light as God is in the light, that we have fellowship one with another Here Paul says walk in love and he gives Christ as the example, and then he says walk as children of light.
Now you cannot walk.
In love and not be walking as children of light.
If you're walking in the power of the Spirit of God.
And you cannot be walking as children of light and not be walking in love.
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If you're walking in the power of the Spirit of God as he operates upon the new nature.
The Lord Jesus was here below.
Everything that he said.
Everything that he did.
All his movements was the perfect expression.
Of light and love come down into this world. What is Christianity? Christianity is light and love come Into Darkness and selfishness.
Now that's what we are by nature.
We're dark and we're selfish creatures.
We seek our own things.
And the Lord Jesus down here.
As I said a moment ago.
We want to know what we are as Christians.
Those who have received his life.
I want to spend a little bit more on that.
In John chapter 1. John's Gospel chapter 1.
Where we have the person.
Of the eternal Son of the Father brought before us.
I'll read the first 4 verses.
In the beginning was the word.
His eternal being.
And the word was with God.
His distinct personality.
And the word was God.
His proper deity.
Presenting to us the person of One who from all eternity existed.
Co equal with the Father.
The same was in the beginning with God.
And then it brings before us that He's the creator.
All things were made by him. All things came into being through him.
And without him was not anything made that was made. Nothing has come into being that has come into being.
And having spoken of him as the creator and as the one that is brought into existence, everything that has existence.
Outside of God himself.
He speaks of something that had no existence, that had no beginning.
That always existed. In him was life.
And the life was the light of men.
When the light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not.
I just want to dwell on that for a moment.
Here was something that had no beginning.
That will have no ending.
The life.
Of the eternal Son of God.
The eternal life that was with the Father and was manifested to us.
In him was life.
And the life was the light of men. It doesn't say the life was the light of angels.
It says the life was the light of men.
And to me, it is such a tremendous thought.
And the more I've pondered it, meditated upon it.
The more I've realized that it's the only way it could be. God being who he is, light and love.
In order to bring us into blessing, it must be according to what He is Himself.
In order to have our fellowship. And this is if this is the desire of his heart, as we were singing in #3 in the appendix.
To bring us into the very place that his son was in from all eternity.
Now he's become a man.
And in order to bring us into that place, he went to the cross.
To erase everything that would have hindered that fellowship. And now is the risen, glorified man he imparts to us.
Eternal life.
Well, here it says that life was in him from all eternity. It's not a created life.
The Angel Catholic created life.
We partake of an uncreated life.
We partake of the very life of Christ.
It has no beginning.
It has no ending.
It's the eternal life that was with the Father.
The angels don't have fellowship with the Father.
They cannot cry ABBA father, like we can.
The Lord Jesus, the eternal Son, He bypassed the angels.
Those beings that are greater in might in power than we.
And he took hold of the seed of Abraham.
He came to where you and I were.
And he died for us.
Shed his precious blood in the cross.
And now he's gone above the angels.
And he's entered into the glory as a man.
And from that place in glory he imparts to you and to me eternal life, and he glorifies the Father.
So that we.
Can have fellowship.
With the Father and with the Son.
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We've been brought into a place of nearness, young people.
Nearness and blessing.
That is.
Well, it's beyond the thought of man altogether.
In him was life, and the life was the light of men, not angels.
Men, that life, that eternal life that was with the Father, was manifested to us, and we see it down here below in a man.
And every manifestation of that life is a perfect blending of light and love.
Light in love.
You cannot say here he is light and here he is love.
When He said to those Pharisees, ye hypocrites, ye generation of Vipers, how shall ye escape the damnation of hell? He was uttering those words not out of anger.
But in love.
Because that's what was needed.
For their blessing.
They needed to have their consciences reached.
And if you will look in your own life, and I speak to my own heart and conscience.
And if we look at our assemblies.
We see some of the problems that have come in amongst us.
Is it not because we try to pit these two principles of God's being one against the other?
Is it not because we seek to do we Sometimes in our own minds, maybe unwittingly, we divorce the two and we say, well, this brother is on the side of.
Light and this brothers on the side of love.
Well, if we look at the life of the Lord Jesus.
Divine life, that eternal life that was down here in that Blessed One, in all its perfect manifestations.
We see that everything that he did and said, every word that He uttered, was the perfect expression of the Father, a perfect expression of God who is light and love.
You cannot have the one without the other.
Look for instance.
At First Thessalonians, chapter 3 I believe it is.
First Thessalonians, chapter 3.
Verse 11.
Now God himself and our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way unto you.
The Lord make you to increase.
And abound in love, one toward another.
And toward all men, even as we do toward you.
To the end, he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness.
Before God, even our Father at the coming.
Of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his Saints.
Your hearts might be.
That you might increase and abound in love one toward another, That he to the end he may establish your heart's unblameable in holiness.
When we walk in love, one toward another, it results in holiness.
Paul says it leads to and produces holiness. The two are never divorced in scripture. You get that in the 4th chapter First Thessalonians. He says in verse 3 this is the will of God.
Even your sanctification that you should abstain from fornication.
That everyone of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor.
Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles, which know not God, that no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any manner, because that the Lord is the avenger of all such as we also have forewarned you and testified. For. God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. God is light.
There you have that character.
And then in verse 9, he says, but as well, let me read verse 8, how important that is, especially since we're speaking to young people.
He therefore that despiseth.
Those who will not regard what Paul is saying here despiseth not man, but God.
Who hath also given unto us his Holy Spirit, young brother, young sister.
If you do not keep your body.
Holy.
If you do not possess your vessel in sanctification and honor.
You're not despising man, but God who has given us his Holy Spirit.
The Spirit of God has taken up his abode in our bodies, and he says, as he says to the Corinthians, know he not that your bodies are the temple of God.
Which you have of God, The Spirit of God dwelleth in you. And so here he says, he that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God.
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To indulge your carnal appetites, because we all have the old nature. We've been Speaking of what we are in the new nature.
We're in the light, and we walk in the light according to what we are as God has made us to be in Christ.
But we know that we still have the flesh.
And this is what I'd like to dwell upon just a little bit at the end of this session.
But here he brings before us in these first verses of First Thessalonians 4.
Truths that flow from the truth that God is light.
But then verse 9. But his touching brotherly love.
You need not that I write unto you, for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.
And indeed you do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia. But we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more.
God is light.
And God is love.
And you'll always find as you read the scriptures.
Since it is the manifestation in US of the life of Christ.
These two principles, these two basic truths of what God is in His essential being.
Light in Love will always be produced in us because we have received.
His life and nature.
We have the very nature in life of Christ Himself.
That eternal life that was with the Father and we have the Spirit of God.
Indwelling us, who has also given unto us His Holy Spirit.
Now.
Turn with me to Two Corinthians, chapter 4.
How?
Is that life that we each one possesses?
We each one walk in the light as he is in the light and I want to say this.
One may have been walking in the light.
For 70 years. 75 years.
One may be a venerable servant of the Lord.
And has served him for many, many years. Another may be a newborn babe that's only been in Christ for a few days.
As far as our acceptance before God is concerned.
There is no difference.
There's no difference.
Sometimes we get the thought that.
If we walk faithfully.
He loves us more.
Well, you know, if you're a father or a mother.
That with your own children.
Your love for your children is the same.
It doesn't vary. Depending upon their walk, you may be grieved.
You may be displeased.
But.
They're your children.
And God loves us with an eternal love and an abiding love.
And so often.
We get the idea that.
If we do something for the Lord.
We might have a bad conscience and in order to.
Assuage the sense of guilt that we have. We want to start to do something for the Lord, pass out some tracts or.
Speak a word or so and then we feel better.
Well, if that's our state.
We're not enjoying the portion that we've been brought into in Christ.
Nothing we do.
All the service that we may render.
Doesn't change our acceptance before God. One title.
He doesn't love me anymore.
Because I may have served him for 50 or 70 years.
Than if I never served him.
I was struck this morning when the brother read and I want to read it before we look at 2nd Corinthians 4.
That verse in First Corinthians 15.
By the Apostle Paul.
Says in verse 9.
He says I am the least of the apostles.
I am not meant to be called an apostle.
Because I persecuted the Church of God. Notice what he says in verse 10.
But by the grace of God, I am what I am.
And His grace, which was bestowed upon me, was not in vain.
But I labored more abundantly, abundantly than they all was that to his credit.
He says, yet not I.
But the grace of God which was with me.
It wasn't I that did that laboring.
No, he takes no credit whatsoever.
For all the sufferings.
And all that he had gone through for Christ.
He said it was the grace of God.
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It was the grace of God.
And dear young people, if you get nothing else.
This afternoon.
Remember.
You're loved. You're loved because God is love.
Not because of anything in you.
He didn't look down and see that I was better than someone else and so he elected me.
Or that you were better than someone else and so he chose me for blessing. Oh no.
What we've had before us in John 4.
Is the very material.
That God uses to bring into the greatest, highest, most wondrous blessing.
And I think the principle of it, our brother said yesterday in the address.
That no flesh.
Should glory in His presence.
As it is written, he that gloryeth, let him glory in the Lord.
And young brother and young sister.
Just remember.
That in any service that you might do for him.
Any service.
Doesn't change your standing a bit.
Doesn't make you anymore loved of him one bit.
He loves you with an eternal, everlasting love.
Because his son.
Has.
Gone to the cross for you.
And the Lord Jesus.
He speaks of us.
As the ones whom the Father has given him.
The love gift of the Father to the Son.
That's the way he views us.
And that's the way we must always.
Consciously realize.
That were loved.
With a love which doesn't depend on us in any way.
It's a love which flows from his own heart, because that's what he is. God is love.
But in order to have us in His presence, it must be according to the truth that He is light.
That he's absolute purity.
That he's unsullied, Holiness.
In him is no darkness at all.
And if we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. That's the test of profession. And the one that walks in darkness proves that he's never known the Lord.
He's never been brought out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Well, how can this life that we have be manifested in us in Two Corinthians 4?
The Apostle Paul says in verse 6, Brother, read that this morning.
And I'll read it again for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness.
Shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God.
In the face of Jesus Christ.
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the Excellency of the power may be of God.
And not of us. An illusion, no doubt, to Gideons.
300.
And he had those lights, and they were inside the earthen vessels.
And then they at the signal they broke the earthen vessel, and the light that was within shone out.
Now everyone of us has the life.
The life is the light of.
And we all have that life, everyone of us. How can it shine out?
The vessel is the hindrance, that life we have the immense blessing in earthen vessels, these bodies of ours.
The vessel has to be broken.
We have this treasure in earthen vessels that the Excellency of the power.
May be of God and not of us.
Oh, we realize and.
I realize it more and more, and I'm sure that those have gone on longer. Realize it far more deeply.
But we can do nothing.
We can do nothing.
We deal with souls, we speak to a soul of Christ, we present the truth to them. And remember, when I was a young man, I used to engage in arguments.
Trying to convince.
Convince them of the truth of Scripture.
But we realize as we get a little bit older that.
We can do nothing. We have this treasure in earthen vessels.
That the Excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.
It's it hasn't. It's not from.
It's of his power.
And he has to take the vessel and break it down.
Make us to realize what we are. And so here we have the breaking of the vessel.
In verse 8, we are troubled on every side.
Yet not distressed.
You know, young person, you're going to have trouble.
You're going to have problems.
In your life.
And I want to just say this to you.
Don't just look at the immediate cause of your trouble.
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Don't just look at the one that may have spoken in injustice to you.
The one that may have.
Done something that was altogether wrong to you?
Look beyond that. Don't just look at Satan.
Look beyond that and see God.
Ordering everything in your life and mine for good and blessing.
Paul could say troubled on every side.
Yet not distressed.
We are perplexed.
But not in despair. How many times you've come to?
A point in your life where you just didn't know which way to turn perplexed.
But Paul says not in despair.
Persecuted but not forsaken.
We were hearing this morning about those that have confessed Christ.
Up north.
And they're feeling the persecution.
Well.
I'm sure that everyone of us feels that in some measure as we pass through this world.
And Paul felt it so much more than we do.
But he wasn't forsaken, and neither are we.
Cast down but not destroyed, and here we have the secret.
Of real blessedness.
Always bearing about in the body.
The dying of the Lord Jesus.
That the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
That life is in us as light and the vessel has to be broken. That the light might shine out.
God has given to us eternal life.
And that life is in the sun.
But there's great hindrances with everyone of us, and the more we learn of our own wretchedness and what we are in ourselves, the more we realize that.
The only way that that light can shine out.
Is that the vessel be broken?
And God puts us through all these difficulties and all these trials. It may be a sickness.
It may be.
Something that happened on the job, it may be something at school for one of you young people where you've been unjustly accused, whatever it may be.
God sends these things to break the vessel.
To make us to realize what we are.
That the Excellency of the power may be of God, not of us.
Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus.
That the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. That's what God is seeking to do in our lives.
He is working in everyone of our lives.
For the reproduction of Christ.
And there's only one thing that will delight and glorify the Father.
And that's Christ.
And he's given us the very life of Christ and the only way that life can shine out of your life and mine.
Is the vessel be broken and God puts us through various things.
In order to break the vessel.
In order to deliver us from ourselves and the very thing that we might be seeking to extricate ourselves from.
The very thing that God has put us into.
That he might see Christ.
That the life of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
The very things that the assemblies are being put through.
Are the very things, and as we go around we hear and see many difficulties.
And it's necessary.
As we see what our state is.
As I look at my own heart and you look at your own heart.
We see the perfection of the life which has been communicated to us in the sun.
We see it in him, but oh how imperfect in.
Because there is a vessel, there's that vessel of clay in which the light is.
That is a hindrance now. Soon we're going to trade this scene for the glory.
What we call the flesh will be forever gone and left behind.
And we'll be there with him.
Well.
We have just a few more moments and I'm glad for that because I'd like to turn you to Philippians 3.
Philippians 3.
We read this verse earlier.
In the meetings and I'd like to reread it. Verse 3.
We are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh.
He has just said in the previous verse, beware of the concision, beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision.
The concision and the circumcision are very, very similar words.
But all how different they are.
The concision represents fixing up the old nature.
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The circumcision, which Paul says all Christians are. And he's not talking about the literal thing, but he's talking about the spiritual thing. We are the circumcision. What does that mean?
We are those that recognize that the existence of Christianity is after God has totally set aside the first man.
That all that we are by nature, all that we are in the flesh, has come to an end judicially at the Cross.
We are the circumcision. We are those that have met with the judgment of God upon the flesh.
God is not looking for fruit from the first man.
That's been set aside altogether. He has a new order of man.
Christianity, I say, began with the resurrection, glorification of Christ and the sending down of the Holy Spirit. But it's seen in Christ as a man on earth. The life that we have, a man under the power of the Spirit of God walking down here for the glory of God is Father.
And that life is ours.
So I believe that explains the expression that we had in John 4.
The hour cometh and now is.
When the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.
He was a true worshiper. We are now true worshippers. He was down here that eternal life manifested as a man on earth. That life has been given to us. It can only be seen in display down here in us if the vessel is broken.
And we are the circumcision. We recognize that all that we are according to the flesh and in the flesh.
Has met with the judgment of God.
I just want to refer you to Leviticus 13, a passage that brings that out.
I believe better than any other passage.
Leviticus 13 before closing.
Verse 12.
And if leprosy break out abroad in the skin?
And the leprosy cover all the skin of him that hath the plague, from his head even to his foot.
Wheresoever the priest looketh.
Then the priest shall consider, and behold if the leprosy have covered all his flesh.
He shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague.
It is all turned white. He is clean.
What does that speak of?
I have pondered that. It seems so strange. Here's the man. He's completely covered with leprosy from the crown of the head to the bottom of the foot.
Completely covered.
Well, it speaks of this.
Speaks of a man. He can look at himself and he can't see any sound flesh in his entire body.
He can't see anything that he can say. Ah, I can glory in that. That's not covered with leprosy. In other words, it's the picture of a man that sees himself totally ruined.
We are the circumcision, that is, those that we see, the whole flesh, all that we were in Adam, all that we are in the flesh.
Has met with the judgment of God. There's not one part of the man that he could glory in because he was totally covered by leprosy. God says that man is clean. It's a picture of one who has judged himself in the light of the cross and seen himself totally set aside. And what a glorious deliverance that is.
What a glorious deliverance I am now in a Newman. I have his life and nature, I have his Holy Spirit.
But I still have the flesh in me. But I've seen the judgment of God upon it.
As the circumcision, I realize that God can find nothing from the flesh that he can take delight in.
And so the vessel has to be broken. God has to put us through all the difficulties of the way that the light which is within the life of Jesus might be made manifest.
In our mortal flesh.
We worship by the Spirit of God.
Rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Now here was a man.
That could take all kinds of confidence in the flesh.
He says if any man had had confidence in the flesh, I rather oh, he could glory in those things.
But he had gotten a glimpse.
Of Christ in glory.
Dear young people.
Christ is your life.
The Spirit of God has been given to you.
United you to that man up there.
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You belong to another world.
God is pronounced.
Total judgment on all that we were in the flesh and in Adam.
What a deliverance.
What a deliverance.
Remember that every manifestation of that life.
Will be light and love.
We do one who is under discipline, no service.
By throwing our arms around them.
And saying we love you brother.
We do them no service.
God may be working in that person's soul.
I have seen a brother restored to the table because Saints have done that.
That brother never got restored in his soul.
Because God was working.
And the work of God and that brother's soul was negated by a false love.
By Honey.
Love and holiness, light and love.
Always together.
And then there's the other side.
Where we might assume an austere, hard, legalistic spirit against another under pretension of standing for principles and love and holiness, and there's no love.
There's no.
Neither one of those two extremes is of God.
Neither one.
Christ is the perfect manifestation.
Of light and love in perfect blend, in perfect harmony, in perfect consistency, the one with the other.
And you'll always find them together. Ephesians 5. Walk in love. Walk as children of light.
Well, there's so much more that we could look at. Time is up.
May God help us.
As we realize the immense.
Blessing that has brought us into.