The Essentiality of Christ

… Just know it, that we are loved. Just know it, that we are loved. O Jesus, Savior, remnant of mine, Who came from angels to us finally, Our love we share with all who live here and love in heaven. He has just raised the hill above us, O Jesus, Savior, yet this heart of mine, Who gave our love for Him so full of glory, Is home forevermore. Savior, love of me, I love you. Of whom I cannot tell, O King or Lord, The fullness of my love I give you, My life, even so I give to you. For now, for all, for all the days, Since I have loved you, O King, in Jesus' name I will die now, Leading me to the kingdom of love, In love may I in simple faith walk by, And never to another try my heart to fear. Lord Jesus, when we chase to chase thy feet, Let us, my love, in your righteousness lead. Let us, my love, in all its breadth and breadth, If I am dead, in death, in death my soul shall live. I have a very simple work. It may take me some little time to develop it, and I can't immutably verge on the sense that what has been asked for so ultimately in our brother's prayer may be realized amongst us. I may say at once that our brother's prayer both encouraged and challenged me as to this work. One would desire to indeed be a true Koshai, insignificant, but burning a word which one desires might be prophetic, and bring the affections of the beloved brethren into a definite living touch with God. One is growing a little older. Heaven is getting a little nearer. And one's own affections, beloved brethren, are centered in this great desire that the things of earth might recede, and the preciousness of the things in Christ might become increasingly dear to every one of our hearts. If I were asked to summarize my remarks, I would say that I want to show you, by the help of the Holy Spirit, the absolute essentiality of Christ to God. That is what I want to speak about. Is he essential to us? Indeed he is, blessed be his name. But he is essential to God. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The philosopher may argue. The scientist may wander with his telescope or probe with his microscope. The agnostic may cavil in his dark lack of knowledge as to why God created the heavens and the earth. But we know. We know why God created the heavens and the earth. Let me say at once that faith enters into this matter. By faith we apprehend that the words were framed by the word of God. Not your books of geology nor science nor astronomy will help you. It's a question of a link with God in faith, if you are to understand why these worlds were created. But why were they created? For by will they have been and are created. The moment the will of God is introduced, you get two things, one blessed, one malign. The moment the will of God is introduced, the mind and affections must of necessity be focused on Christ. No other way could the will of God be brought in, established. It must be by one who loves that will, who enshrines it in the very spring of his being in his heart. The will of God was a heart matter to Jesus. What is it to you, beloved brother and sister? Some think a text of scripture. It was a heart matter to Jesus. But the moment the will of God is brought into the universe, the devil opposes it. He had opposed it before the second verse of scripture was written. Oh yes, the earth was waste and empty but God didn't create it like that. Someone had opposed the will of God. It was Satan. And how did he oppose it? In opposition to Christ, the Son of God. The 28th chapter of Ezekiel confirms what I'm saying. That mighty being clothed in gold and nine precious stones, including diamonds and all the rest, he wasn't content with the status that God gave him as the covering cherub to point to the earth and to obtain a response from it for the heart of God. No, he lifted up his heart in pride. And it was against Christ. Not yet known as Christ, but against that blessed person. And the feelings of God come into it. Do you think God doesn't feel the opposition to his beloved Son? My beloved brethren, he does. Do you? I'll tell you what it would do if you felt the opposition to God's beloved Son. It would bring you right out of the world. Because all the world lies in the lap of the devil, the one who has opposed Christ from the onset. The lover of Jesus will want to have part of the system which is marked by diametrical opposition to Christ. Oh, I'm speaking freely, mate. And I never speak to you again. But I will leave this impression, as the Lord helps me, of the essentialness of Christ, of the glory of God, and of your blessing and mine. The Spirit of God moved from the waters. Hidden in that word move is the feelings of God, the feelings of God. He was not moving arbitrarily. He was not moving casually. He took account of the fact that the creation, which was called into being for the will and glory of God, which must center in Christ, had been fouled by the awful movements of the devil. God moves. He goes steadily on. And you will find, dear brethren, that there were three attacks that the enemy made against the establishment of the will of God in this scene. One was in Egypt, when he said, if it's a son, kill him. Every male child was to be thrown into the Nile. Why? In the garden of Eden, God said that the woman's sleeve should crush his head. Not bruise, crush his head. And the devil was on the lookout for a man. He didn't know where he was coming from. And then later on he heard God say, in Isaac shall thy seed be called. And he knew from whence that man was coming. And he set himself vehemently, devilishly, against that nation. He would destroy that nation. Why? Not because he particularly hated the Jews, but he wouldn't have Christ come in. Jesus, son, kill him. God wanted otherwise. There were hearts there that treasured the thoughts of God. Women. A word for the sisters. And a word for every one of us. For, beloved brethren, the triumph of God, the will of God, the glory of Christ, stands related preciously and intimately to his own subjective work by his Spirit in your heart and mine. That's the great banner against the movements of the devil. The consolidation of the work of God in the heart of his people. I don't go into the detail. I'm afraid I might take up too much time, even as it is. The position was saved by these women. And God said, I want that feature to be perpetuated amongst my people. He built them houses, not tents. He built them houses. I want to house that feature, he says. I want to give it a permanent dwelling place amongst the saints. Are you living there, beloved brother or sister? Has God built you a house? Has God taken account in your heart of the fact that you would preserve that which is precious to him in relation to Christ? Atomic bombs? Nothing can destroy the foundation of this house. There's safety for time and eternity for those whose hearts are set for the glory of Christ. The book of Esther. Kill every Jew! Written down, signed by the great monarch. No one dare conflict their thoughts against his. The grunt must be. The Agagite was there. The enemy of God and his people. The enemy of Christ. Again saved by the subjective work in the hearts of God's people. Esther. The myrtle tree. Adassa, her name. Esther was the name in the fortress of Huton but recorded in the book of the sons of Israel. Her name was Adassa, a myrtle tree. Search the scriptures and you will find that when God mentions the myrtle tree he's delighting in preserving that which stands related typically to Christ. Instead of the briar, the curse which the devil has brought in should be the myrtle tree. Thank God. Who's going to triumph in this mighty conflict? God. Look at that man there walking amongst the myrtle trees. Go down, says God, and speak comfortable words to him about my people. I haven't forgotten them, they've forgotten me. Go down and speak comfortable words to the men amongst the myrtle trees. Look at that great day of recovery in Nehemiah's day, Ezra's day. As they sit in the light of the preciousness of what the church is to Christ typically. Leviticus says they were to bring certain trees which they did, but they added the myrtle tree. Oh, blessed fact. God rejoicing in the preservation of that which stands related in fidelity, typically, to Christ. And so God moves on. The God of glory appears to Abraham calling him out. But you know you can't think of the God of glory without reaching the consummation of the matter. What is it? The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, yes. He looked into the open heavens and he saw the glory of God and Jesus. Oh, beloved brethren, the glory of God and Jesus. Jesus is essential to the glory of God. And if the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham calling him out, oh, beloved brethren, what a mighty triumph God has in mind. It says in that Psalm 29 where the only other reference to the God of glory is made, it says, God sits upon the deluge. On the deluge, God sits there upon the deluge. The many waters there is the same word that's used for the flood. God sits above it all. He sits above all the judgment that has been necessary because of man's failure to regard him and his listening to the devil. But he reigns forever. He reigns forever. He reigns forever. And then he would call out a people. How does he start? Like an ark. He's going to dwell amongst his people but he calls attention at once to the essentiality of the ark. If God is to be amongst his people, if God is to carry out his thoughts in relation to his mighty triumph in the affections of his saints, the ark must be there having its central place in that mosaic economy. I pass on to the Psalms. And the first Psalm brings before me the moral features of Christ. The experiences of God with men, culminating each book in a doxology and finalizing in a response from everything that hath breath but starting with the moral features of Jesus. What a victory, beloved brethren. This is how God works. All the Psalms, how blessed they are. Everything that hath breath praising the Lord, even the hail, the snow. I don't know where they're going to do it but they are. The very trees are going to clap their hands. But it's based upon the fact that God has found a blessed man every moral feature of whom rejoices his heart. It's that man that he sets on his holy hill of Zion at the heathen rage. Let men in their concerted action set themselves against God's bands and cords. Let them strive for the highest place. And when they get there they find it occupied, for Christ is there. Yet, he says, nevertheless, in spite of what they're doing, I've set my king on my holy hill of Zion. And, beloved brethren, everything is solidly safe and permanent because Christ is there. But that's under the Proverbs. That book of wisdom. The prophecy of Agar. The son of Jacob. He prophesied. And that word prophecy there is the same word as used in relation to Kenny Iyer, the master of music. I delight in that. I hadn't noticed it until recently. Beloved brethren, he's going to prophesy before Ethiel and Euclid. You don't find those names anywhere else in scripture, but it's sufficient for me that they're there once. Ethiel means God is. Euclid means God must prevail. And I can understand any prophet if he's going to prophesy with those thoughts before him that his prophecy will take on music. He'll rejoice in what he's saying. It won't be a dull word that makes the brethren growl and look at the clock. Oh no, dear brethren. A man who's prophesied to Euclid and Ethiel. He'll cause the hearts of the saints to skip like lambs and bound in responsive joy to Christ. This prophecy. It was an utterance. And that utterance means it had been a discourse in his own heart. And he got the sense of confirmation in his own spirit that what he said would be established. And we have, beloved brethren, we may present it very poorly, but we've got this music ringing in our hearts tonight. You remember the prophet who, when he was asked to prophesy, he said, I won't say a word to the minstrels brought. I'm not prepared to say a word unless the sweet note in relation to Christ has been struck in my affections. Beloved, we've been to God about this meeting. We have. We've been to God about this meeting. And we're assured that what we're saying is from God. And we're assured that every word that God has said in relation to that blessed man is going to be established. It is. God is. Let the agnostic go out of sight. He that cometh unto God must believe that he is. And he's the rewarder of them that urgently seek him. What will he reward you with? He'll say, come and enjoy what I'm enjoying. That blessed one who has delighted my heart from eternity, if you'll only believe that I am and come to me, I'll reward you with constant, continuous, precious, fresh impressions of the preciousness of Jesus. The witnesses must be gathered. Oh, yes. We've had a guile, haven't we? But that's nothing to the wind that the devil has set on in this world in an attempt to blow out of it the will of God. He tried it on the like of Gennasiot. He didn't know who was there. Have all of you ever thought of the majesty of a man who could stand up and say to the wives, be quiet, and they would? The waters have got to be gathered. Yes. The waters of death needed to be bounded. Who could do it? Jesus. God's rights have got to be established to the ends of the earth. Who can do it? What is his name? And his son's name? All we know, beloved brethren, is Jesus. God would tell me in every page of scripture that Christ is essential to his glory. I go to Isaiah, the prophet, the beginning of the prophets, and I see in Isaiah one who as a prophet is characterized by his word before he speaks it. His name means the salvation of John. The salvation of John. And as he goes on to unfold before us the way in which salvation is procured through the holy sufferings of Jesus and the establishment of God's glory. Before he unfolds his prophecy, he is his prophecy in himself. As I think of Jah, my mind goes to that 68th Psalm, which is full of the movements of Jah. Read it for yourselves. And I see three outstanding things in that Psalm. I see every enemy scattered. Every enemy scattered. All the enemies scattered. And then I see God filling the scene of death with the blessed compassion and love of his own heart. This God, who is presented to us in that Psalm, doing such marvelous things, it says that he is the father of the fatherless and the judge of the widows. What makes fatherless and widows death? And into the scene where death has robbed God of his pleasure in man and man of his pleasure in God, God pours the compassion of his own blessed love. Oh, what a triumph. But how did he do it? In Jesus. In Jesus. Look at that poor woman coming out of Nain's gate. The Lord Jesus was about to do something spectacular. He was going to cancel a funeral procession. Doctors can stop them for a while, you know, until they've looked into matters, but they can't cancel them. Nobody can but Christ, the Son of God. It was going to be a marvelous, spectacular thing to make a corpse sit up and speak and give him to his mother. But all belovedly thinks there was something greater than that. Before he did it, it says he had compassion on her. Had compassion on her. Yes, the father of the fatherless, the judge of the widows. But there's a third thing in that Psalm. He says it all stands related to a man ascended in glory. He's given gifts in men, even for the rebellious. What for? That the dwelling of God might be there. Oh, that's the triumph. That the dwelling of God might be there. Given gifts. A blessed ascended man at God's right hand. And so, beloved, we go on to the sixth chapter of Isaiah. In the previous chapters, which are a preface to the book, we find that in spite of the rebellion of God's people, God holds to his thoughts, his righteousness is there, his redemption is there, the majesty of his glory is there, his light is there, his ways are there, his paths are there. You'll find them all in those verses. But there comes a moment when the man after the flesh goes out of sight. Isaiah dies, that leprous man. And there comes into view a blessed man. You say it's the sixth of Isaiah. I know, but it's Christ it's speaking about. The day that Isaiah saw my glory. My glory. What sort of a man is he? He's trying to build the temple. And the whole earth is filled with his glory. He fills heaven and earth. Blessed man. All God's thoughts are that heaven and earth should be brought together. Indeed, he says that in the very beginning of the book. Hearing the heavens and hearing the earth. He brings them together in his own mind. But the only way in which he can bring them together and fill them both with his glory is in Jesus. No other way. And we can go through all the prophets in the same way. For the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus. Look at Enoch, look at that Enoch in the desert. He's reading from Isaiah. And Philip goes to him. And he begins with the same scripture and he preaches to him, Jesus. We were saved together in the house and I say it without the slightest fear of contradiction. I care not where Philip had been reading. Where the Enoch had been reading. Philip could have commenced with the same scripture and preached to him, Jesus. Yes. He expounded in Moses and in the Psalms and in the prophets the things concerning himself. I remember years ago a traveler calling on my brother-in-law, before he was my brother-in-law. He was a Christian man. My brother-in-law was reading Leviticus. I said, I can't understand why you can read a book like that, it has nothing to do with us. He said, I'll give you the key to Leviticus. Go home and write Christ across every page. Yes. He gave him CHN to help him, but he did it. And we come to the New Testament. Pardon me going on so long, dear brethren. The book of the generation of Jesus Christ. Here he is. Here he is. Son of David, son of Abraham. No, I haven't. But Abraham was before David. Yes, I know. The Spirit of God says, son of David, son of Abraham. The Spirit of God is right. Oh yes, the rights of God's throne must take precedence over the promises to his people. And he comes in to establish the rights of the throne of God. This son of David. This blessed administrator of every promise. In him, all the promises of God are yes. But not at the expense of the throne of God. Not at the expense of the glory of God. Not at the expense of the will of God. The devil made promises. Look, he says, of all this wonderful panorama. I'll give it to you, he says. The brother remarked in the interim that he showed him the glories of the earth. The kingdoms of the earth and all their glory in a moment of time. And the Lord Jesus is going to destroy it all in an hour of time. But he's got to take you and me out of it in a twinkling of an eye. Yes. He made promises, but they were against the will of God. Here he comes. This is my beloved son. This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Well pleased. Yes. The pleasure of the Godhead. The pleasure of the Godhead. Someone said in the interim, we didn't say much about verse 9. The fullness of the Godhead dwelt in him bodily. Of course, that I know refers to him where he is. Do you want to see any attribute of God, his righteousness, his love, his majesty, his glory, his compassion, his power? It's there in Jesus. Every iota of it. And there will never be seen one iota of the attributes of God, save that which is revealed to us in the person of Christ. But we won't need to see anything of the Lord because he's made a full revelation in you. My beloved son in whom I am well pleased. The book of the generation of Jesus Christ. Yes. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came down and he did two things. He filled the place where they sat. That is to say he established a realm in which he would work. We overlook that sometimes. He not only filled each one, but he filled the place where they sat. He established a realm for his working. And then he sat on each one of them. Why did he do it? Oh, he was commissioned to take of the things of Christ and show them to them. He was commissioned to exalt that blessed person. Isaiah says in that preface, the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. And this is the Spirit's day. And beloved brethren, what the Holy Spirit has been doing right on from Pentecost, for the day of Pentecost, is still being established. What he has been doing all the way is to exalt Christ. Said a young man to me once, how can we test the Spirit? Well, very simply, every Spirit which exalts man is antichrist. The Holy Spirit always exalts Christ. Me, a brother or a sister, who gives you a word that exalts Christ in your affections, that brother and sister has been moving under the influence of the Holy Spirit. But I must draw to a close. He came to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ. And to reproduce in the saints the features of the only man who ever has, who ever could stand for the will of God. The only order of manhood of whom it could be said, the prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me. Now beloved, I don't want to strain things, and I don't want to say anything that will be misquoted or misunderstood. But the work of God in your heart and mine is as perfect as that. As perfect as that. The work of God in your heart and mine is something that the enemy can come to and find no point of contact in it. Let that be firmly established in every heart here tonight. This is the triumph of God in the very place where Jesus has been refused and cast out. When it looked as though the enemy triumphed, oh, I was saying to someone in the interim, one of the things that's going to rejoice my heart is this, I'm going to hear the devil say Lord to Jesus. I am. I am. It makes my spiritual mouth water. I'm going to hear the devil say Lord to Jesus. But in the meanwhile, oh beloved, I have said Lord to him. You have said Lord to him. Now what does it mean? That as coming under his authority, God would work out his will in you. God has made a new beginning. This wonderful beginning which he ever had in mind in relation to Christ. You get this new beginning in the Spirit's day and you find hearts here coming under the influence of the preciousness of Christ. And the majestic result is this, that in a world which wholly lies in the lap of the wicked one, there are men and women who are giving the testimony to the fact that God is amongst them of the truth. God is amongst them of the truth. I hope we shall never get a meeting room so packed that there won't be room for a stranger to fall down and say God is amongst you of the truth. We want to leave room. I'm not speaking of course in relation to inches or yards or cubic measurements. We ought to leave room morally for any heart hitherto unaffected by the establishment of the will of God. We ought to leave room for that heart that's coming amongst us to fall down and say God is among you of the truth. But beloved, I can't say it unless it's true. I can't say it unless it's true. Is God amongst us of the truth? Have we so allowed that blessed one in the power of the Spirit to fill our hearts that we are set here as helped by the Holy Spirit of God to do exactly what he did? You know what he said, he that hath seen me hath seen the Father. Everything that Jesus did or said was a perfect replica of our God's will was a perfect replica of how God would have done it. And oh beloved, I'm not exalting the saints above measure, God forbid. We should be nothing were it not that we're the complement of Christ. But beloved, as brought to him as under the power of the Spirit demeanor our words, our actions the very atmosphere that permeates our beings should speak of God. And the testimony to men today is not creation. The testimony of God to men today is not the law. Listen. No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father he hath declared him. Yes, but he's gone. And the apostle writing his letter says no man has seen God at any time. Beloved, if we love one another God dwells in us. The glory of God and the love of God are correlated throughout scripture. And oh beloved brethren, if you and I want to be here expressers of the glory of God we do it as the love of God takes possession of our hearts. And where do I see the love of God? In Jesus, in Jesus. And as the love of God takes possession of our hearts and transforms our minds and thoughts and words and lives there is a testimony to men that God is amongst us for the truth. May the Lord bless his work. Amen. Amen. …