SermonIndex Classics - T. Austin Sparks

T. Austin Sparks: In all its terms and meaning, all that we could desire and we believe all that thou dost desire would be fulfilled. Not as a part of our program, but from our very heart we say, "Lord, break thou the bread of life to me. Thou art the bread of life. Give us of thyself this morning."

May there be a true ministration of Christ in this hour. Send thy Spirit, Lord, in a new way to us. Open our eyes that we may see thee, Lord. Answer this prayer for thine own name's sake. Amen.

The letter to the Hebrews, chapter one, verses one and part of two. "God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things."

The peril running immediately alongside of our reading of those words is the peril of familiarity. What I mean is this: that after more than sixty years of being actively in ministry of the Word, and therefore closely acquainted with the Scriptures, these words are more alive and more meaningful today than ever.

So it ought to be. My trouble is that I haven't long enough to live with these words and with this letter. You ought not to know your Bible in a certain sense. You ought, and we ought, to be coming to it every time as though we did not know it, and it ought to be to us like that, something we really after all do not know.

I cannot convey to you my own sensing of this. I can only make a statement like that as to how it ought to be. I'm not coming back to you with some addresses which I have made up out of the letter to the Hebrews. The trouble is, the difficulty is to convey that sense of immensity, vitality, urgency that is present with me in this letter, as in other parts of course. It must come to you in that way.

And that is why we pray, "Oh, send thy Spirit, Lord, now unto me, that he may touch mine eyes and make me see beyond the sacred page." Beyond the sacred page, that's where we have to see. We see the letter, we see the page, we see the words. We know them. They are so familiar. But it's something in the beyond of the actual writing that we have got to see. The Lord help us this morning.

Now, having repeated those words at the beginning of this letter, and I trust that you have already grasped the significance of the introductory words, which are really a comprehending of the whole letter or the truth of the letter that is in the letter, I trust you have seen the two things that comprehend this letter. In times past: fragments, pieces, portions, bits, aspects. Now: all that and much more gathered up together, comprehended, brought together in completeness. No more different portions, no more different times, no more different ways, but now one time, one way, one all-comprehendingness. It's all here. Fullness is reached.

This is the other time, the subsequent time, the ultimate time of fullness, completeness. So this letter brings us the ultimate fullness of all things in the Son. Not only comprehending, not only fullness, but finality. This is the ultimate, the end. There is nothing beyond this. It's the end of all God's speaking. God who did speak, but in those many different ways, forms, methods, has now spoken finally, fully and finally. Nothing beyond.

We ought to be impressed with that, you know. I don't know what you're looking for, what you're expecting, what you're praying for. God has given all that you could ever ask for or pray for. It is present. It is now. He has no more revelation to give, only of what He has given. Revelation now and henceforth is not new truth; it's only light on the truth. Are you clear about that?

That's where we are then with these first words comprehending the letter. Now, I want you just to go over to chapter 12 of this letter just to pick out again our governing words. Remember what we said yesterday about the two all-inclusive governing words which are running right through the New Testament. Chapter 12, verse 18: "For ye are not come." Ye are not come. I'm not going further with that this morning. Ye are not come. Then what? Verse 22: "But ye are come." Not, but.

And I'm not going to follow on with either of what is said in connection with those two words here, not this morning. That comes later, the Lord will, as we get into that tomorrow. But here you have in these two statements, verses 18 to 21, a comprehending of all that has been. It's very comprehensive, as we shall see. And then it's ruled out, finalized with this word "not." Then with verse 22, the introduction of another great order of things, wonderful beyond, beyond our fathoming.

I'm not exaggerating, dear friends, when I say that I could go on for a whole year here on verses 22 and onward. The fullness and profundity is so great because it comprehends the Bible. But leave that for the time being. This discreet divide between the "not" and the "but." The not and the but.

And as I said at the beginning yesterday, we are this time concerned with what we have come to in the advent of Christ and His cross. What we have come to, what we are. I wonder if you were asked this simple question, "What are you?" What are you? What your answer or answers would be. Perhaps you'd say, "Well, I'm a child of God. Well, I'm a Christian." Oh, the answers would be manifold.

Now, this morning, I want to focus all that, as the Lord enables, to tell you what we are. Here then is the great, great divide between the "not" and the "but" as concentrated in this one letter. Other letters are very far-reaching, very great, comprehensive. But in this letter, the particular meaning is that all that lies on the two sides of the cross is concentrated, concentrated in this letter called the Letter to the Hebrews.

Now we get right to our business. You notice, and I'm not dealing with the detail, only with the general statement, under the "not"—"ye are not come to"—under that "not," you have the constituting of the former Israel. You're taken to Sinai. At Sinai, the former Israel was constituted a nation. They were a people, a rabble, a multitude before, and a mixed multitude at that. Now, here at Sinai, they are constituted the ancient Israel, the former Israel. They were Hebrews made into Israel. Hebrews, Jews, now Israel as a nation. I know the name goes back before Israel as to the person, Jacob's new name and his family. But here they are constituted as a nation out from the nations, separate from the nations, distinct among the nations, a nation called collectively Israel.

Something new there in history, something new among the nations, something new in this world, on this earth. A new beginning of God, God's act, God's doing. I need not take time to quote the scriptures. "I have chosen you," says the Lord. "You are my people," implying, "You are the result of my action in history."

The first word is God, and that word always stands right at the head of every new movement of God. God. Genesis: "In the beginning, God." God in action at the beginning. It is God taking the initiative. This people is the result of the divine intervention in the history of this world with a divine act, His own prerogative, wholly, completely, uniquely of Himself. God in creation, a new beginning.

That's the old. You come to the new, and the new opens with the Gospel by John. "In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. In the beginning, God." But this is another new movement. A new creation is here indicated, pinpointed, and it is described. "In the beginning, God created man." Here in John, a new humanity, mankind is brought into view under a "not" and a "but." "Which were born, not of the flesh, not of the will of man, not of bloods." It's in the plural.

Why is it in the plural? Alright, we will not tackle our liberal theologians, but the Holy Spirit is always very exact and correct. And when the Holy Spirit caused it to be put in a way that you almost overlook it, hardly struck by it, and He puts it this way: "Not of bloods." Not of Joseph and Mary. That's the mingling of bloods, isn't it? That's the ordinary natural mankind, the mingling of bloods, two sexes. Not. This is a direct application to the virgin birth. Not all that, but of God.

These are born not that way. As the people of God, they are not born that way. You're never born a Christian. You're never born naturally a child of God. You never inherit divine life by natural birth. Well, it goes without saying. But of God, God's act. God's act to produce a new mankind, a new and different humanity, never produced by the will of man, never produced along natural lines at all. But, not but, of God, a new humanity, a spiritual race, not a natural race at all, a spiritual race.

But then what? What is the implication both of this letter comprehensively and of the New Testament as a whole? What is it? A new Israel. A new Israel. That's what this letter is saying to Hebrews. Hebrews, not those Hebrews of history. A new Israel has come in.

I think you ought to note, if you haven't, it's a very simple thing of course, everybody should be familiar with it. But I'm very glad to notice that in a late translation and interpretation of the Bible, especially the New Testament called "The Amplified," I'm very glad and happy to note on this, as I'm going to mention in another connection presently, wherever the name Christ is mentioned in the New Testament, in that, in that place right through this Amplified New Testament links with the name the word Christ-Messiah. Messiah. It never divides between Christ and Messiah, puts them together, they are one. Because as you know, Messiah is the Hebrew of which Christ is only the Greek, meaning the same: the Lord's Anointed.

The Lord's Anointed. Keep that in mind. The Christ is the Messiah. The Messiah in the history of Hebrew mentality, concept and expectation. The Messiah of the old Israel is the Christ of a new Israel. One name, same name, same meaning, but carried over now.

And so, wherever you read the word Christ in your New Testament, don't forget the hyphen: Messiah. It's most impressive as you read that version every time it comes on the mention of Christ, and then it says Messiah. I say impressive. Does it impress you? Do you see the meaning? See the significance? You see what this is driving at? A new Israel because this is, shall we say, a new Messiah. Is that quite correct? It's the one Messiah, it's the old Messiah.

And here this letter is saying all the old Israel's hopes, expectations, concepts of their coming Messiah, all that ever they associated with that name of the Coming One, Messiah, is taken up in Christ, comprehended in Christ. He comprehends and fulfills it and goes beyond their conception and, as we shall see, beyond their acceptance.

Well, it's a new Israel, not that one of their limited, narrow, exclusive conception, mentality, or even expectation. Much, much greater and much bigger than all that ever that Israel looked for, looked for, expected, prayed for. Much bigger indeed. So we come back to that in a minute. It's a new Israel beginning with, and I must use the word though it's not quite exactly right, new Messiah. The Christ. The Christos, the Anointed One.

Now this, as we have said, is a new act of God. A new act of God is the Messiah, the Christ. And a new act of God is the new Israel. And there are two governing, dominating features and factors in this new Israel as the act of God. Two aspects: the resurrection of Christ. God's act, God's unique act, the resurrection. It's God's specific, peculiar act in history. The act of God, God raised Him. God raised Him. Not resuscitation, resurrection.

And of course, God saw to it. God saw to it that there's no doubt whatever that He died, that He was dead. So far as He as a man was concerned, dead and buried. And if you're in a grave for three days and three nights, you have pretty good ground to conclude that person's dead. All right, no resuscitation, no breathalyzing and no anything like that, no. He's dead. He died. And now only God, only God and the intervention of God can make for anything further. He is God's act in His resurrection.

But then the other aspect of this act of God is Pentecost. Pentecost was God's act. God's act. God did it. The intervention of God by the third person of the Trinity, the intervention of God in history to bring as from death, as from death, this new race. This new race.

I do wish that all people who are so interested in this word Pentecost would recognize really what Pentecost was. Not to limited to this and that and something else, this is Pentecost. The Lord save us from this, this restrictive conception. Pentecost is the act of God in bringing to birth a new, altogether new humanity.

And if your Pentecostalism or experience, forgive me using the very phrase, doesn't mean that there's a new humanity of a different order that is God's doing, and not the result of any kind of so-psychic or any other force produced by the energy of man. It is not something you have to stand back and say, "That's God." And it's God producing a new kind of humanity, unique, different. God's act.

Resurrection, Pentecost are one thing as God's act, firstly in the one Son, and then in the sons to be. That's all very simple I know, but I'm working on toward my, toward the object. Now then, you come back to your New Testament and especially to begin with the Book of the Acts. And what have you in the Book of the Acts? The gradual dawning, the gradual dawning upon the apostles, yes, the apostles, and then upon the believers, the gradual dawning of what has happened. What has happened? What the meaning of Christ was.

It's dawning. It's the faint rays seemingly of a new day just coming up over the horizon and shooting across the sky, and their consciousness of something happening. Notice the beginning. They still began, they still continued to go up to the temple. In the ordinances of the temple, the ritual of the temple, the time of prayer at the temple. Still going up.

But something is happening, something is spreading over their sky and that fades out. It fades out. They're losing that attachment. They're losing that mentality. They're meeting in homes, wherever they can meet. Not meeting in the temple any longer. No, it's not a sudden thing that has happened, that they make a sudden break. As I say, it's the dawning of the meaning of a new day.

It's so real, so clear. They don't put it into any system of teaching and say, "You must come out of that denomination. You must come out of that system. You must leave that order of things." No, it's just happening. Something is happening and they're finding themselves out.

And note this that I'm going to say: First of all, it is not a physical separation. It is not a physical separation, first of all. It's an inward spiritual separation. I put it this way: They find themselves out before they are out. They find that they no longer belong. No one has ever told them that they must leave their denomination, their church, their mission, their this, that and the other organization. Something has happened inside.

You know, in the old creation, God commenced from the outside; in the new, always from the inside. And in this spiritual dispensation, it is you just find yourself somewhere. Perhaps where you never intended to be. Peter never intended that. He quarreled and argued with the Lord out of the house about the house of Cornelius. "No, Lord, not so!" All right, Peter, what has happened to you? Don't you know what has happened to you? You're going to know, and Peter does come to know, doesn't he? Oh, he'll write later on, he'll write about this spiritual house of God.

Well, you see what I mean? Something has dawned, has broken. A new day, the dawning's come in and the light is growing, growing. That's the first movement. Oh, dear friends, do take hold of it. It's an organic thing. It's a movement of life within. It is not legal, "You must, you must not. You must leave this and leave that in order to come to God's fullness." Not that at all. I say stay there until you cannot, for your very life's sake. For your very walk with God's sake. For your very knowledge of the Holy Spirit within. Stay, stay. Comeoutism is a dangerous thing. That is not how it was. On the inside, the way of the Holy Spirit. The initiative of God, the act of God, the dawning of an anew awareness: "Something is happening to me because it's happening in me."

I know what that means. I've had crises like that. I've had crises like that when I knew, I knew that something had happened to create a divide. "And now, Lord, what am I to do? If I take action, look what will happen." And so I stayed and on a false pretext went on. At the end of some months, I found myself like this: I was not in it. No, that is not where I'm finding the Lord. That is not where life is. And I've gone back to the Lord and I said, "Lord, what am I to do?" He said, "So many months ago I took you out in spirit. Now perhaps you'll have to follow in body."

Oh, don't you, don't you put a teaching on that. Don't you take hold of that and crystallize it into a doctrine. It's a spiritual movement because this is a spiritual dispensation. That commenced, as I have said, at the beginning of the Book of the Acts. Before you're through that book, what will you find? You find that the light has been growing and growing. And you're having in the letters that are encompassed by that book—all these letters, every one of the Pauline letters is encompassed by the Book of the Acts, isn't it?—and others. You find that in all these letters which come out, you have the growing revelation of what what had happened. What had happened? What the meaning of the resurrection of Christ and the advent of the Holy Spirit really meant.

The growing revelation not of some new thing as a thing, but of what was at the beginning, at the root of things. So God is moving, so to speak, backward in order to move onward. And you have this growing revelation under these two words: "not", "but". An inward thing. Not, but. The day is moving on. It'll come. It'll come to its glorious consummation when what happened at the beginning is found in the consummation: the new Jerusalem coming down from above. The sum of this new thing that happened with the coming of the Lord Jesus. Now we're coming back to that in Hebrews later on. But you're marking the way. The consummation of the initiation, the growing light, the growing light transforming the mentality.

Oh, I I have the New Testament, you see, right present all of it in mind as I'm speaking. The growing light, increasing understanding of what this new dispensation means. Growing. You'll have many, many exact statements in the growing light which had grown from the day when he first had Christ revealed in him, as he says. The growing light. Paul didn't have it all at once. Growing all the time.

In the growing light, he will say presently the Jerusalem which is beneath is in bondage. Cast out the bondwoman. Not that Jerusalem. The Jerusalem which is above is our mother. Is our mother. You see the language, what it means? And is it not impressive and significant that it is at the end of the Letter to the Galatians? You know what the Letter to the Galatians is about? Think again. Well, it isn't—it's along this line contrast of the "not" and the "but", isn't it? Not circumcision. Not, not, not. But, but.

And at the end of that letter, he uses this so significant, significant phrase. Galatians 6, is it 16? Doesn't matter much, it's right at the end of the letter. "The Israel of God, the whole Israel of God." New Israel. That, that throws light upon the whole letter, you see. One Israel is gone. The old Israel is gone. That's the argument of that letter, isn't it? That's why he got into such trouble. That's why this letter is such a battleground. That Israel no more. Not. But now another. But its Jerusalem headquarters above. Its birthplace above. I come back to that later. The Israel of God, new Israel entirely.

Well now, I must get on. Where does this send me? We must, dear friends, and this is a very vital point in our consideration or what the Lord is trying to say to us, we must recognize the new dimensions of God in this thing that has now come in on the "but" side. The dimensions of God. What was the tragedy of the old Israel? Of course, the tragedy of the old Israel finally is their dismissal. Their dismissal. "The kingdom of heaven shall be taken away from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." That happened, and it stands today. Kingdom of heaven taken away. Not for that Israel, but for another.

The tragedy of Israel of course is that they are dismissed from the dispensation or the dispensational movement of God. For these years, it's lasted two thousand, how many more we don't know, probably not so long. You leave that alone. Here I'm going to upset a lot of you. You leave Israel alone for the time being. You'll get into terrible confusion if you get down on this earth with an earth touch in these things.

Some of us have lived through things. We remember the Kaiser, forgive me. That's not an attack upon any nation or people. But we do remember him going to Jerusalem and having a new door broken into the wall of Jerusalem, that he never went in through any of the gates, the old gates, the old Jerusalem. But because of who he was, who he was, a new gate must be broken in the wall for him. And people fitted that into prophecy. See? And said, "Therefore, the Kaiser is so and so, the Messiah." All right, say no more. Was he?

When General Allenby entered Jerusalem, brought the Turkish rule to an end, the prophetic schools laid hold of it, brought it down to earth and said, "The end of the time of the Gentile." How long ago was that? Was it? Was it? Mussolini, a dear man of God, but caught up in this kind of thing, went from Belgium to Rome to see Mussolini to say to him, "You are the last Caesar to reconstitute the Roman Empire." Whereupon Mussolini had a great statue made of himself, statue made of himself, the last Caesar. And a great relief map of the revived Roman Empire, the king-ten-ten kingdoms behind his statue. The last Caesar of the revived Roman Empire. We need say any more? What about him?

God help the last Caesar. You see? And you go on like that, confusion? You come down onto this earth, leave it alone and see what God is doing. And God is doing a spiritual thing, not a temporal thing. And I could take an hour to enlarge upon that last phrase: a not a temporal thing. Do you see that in the sovereign activities of God now, He is confounding and confusing and breaking down all temporal representations of His heavenly things?

Men are trying to set up local churches after New Testament order. You never had more confusion in local churches than you have today. They are trying to set up things, constitute things, Christian movements, Christian institutions, Christian organizations, and they're all in confusion, don't know what to do with one another. Billy Graham said the psychiatrists are chasing one another around to get some explanation of their own troubles. Well, that may be exaggeration, but you see what I mean?

God is breathing upon every temporal representation in order to have a spiritual expression of Christ. That's the heart of what we're saying. And that is what is clear. Now I was saying, we must recognize the dimensions of this that has come in with Christ and into which we have come: the spiritual dimensions. I diverted from Israel's tragedy. Israel's tragedy, yes, being set aside in this dispensation, but why? Why?

Have you ever answered why? The answer is in one word, friends: exclusivism. "We are the people. Truth begins and ends with us. You will never be able to get anywhere with God if you're not circumcised. Except ye be circumcised, ye cannot be saved." The nations are dogs, are dirt. Poor Jonah, poor Jonah caught in this. "We are the people. We are the beginning and the end of all God's work. You've got to come onto our ground, be on our ground, or you're out. Never will be on God's ground if you don't come onto our ground."

I could enlarge from that of course. Exclusivism. And God never meant that when He took them out of the nations, made them a distinct people, constituted them His own peculiar people. He never meant that. He only meant to plant them in the nations to show the nations what a God He is, what a great God He is. And this, this startled and stung Jonah, that God could ever think in mercy upon anybody outside of Israel. Nineveh.

And so you have it all the way through, haven't you? And that is the trouble in the New Testament with the Lord Jesus. It's the exclusivism of Judaism that is the battleground. The battle in the life of the apostle Paul was that, was that. He's, he's hammering at this brick wall of Jewish exclusivism. And all his sufferings because of that.

This new Israel is so much greater than the old because Christ, this Messiah, is so much greater than their conception of a Messiah. The, the immense dimensions of the new Israel. We've got to recognize this and resist exclusivism where Christ is concerned as we would resist a plague. Where Christ is concerned. I'm not talking about fundamental truths and the personality of Christ, I'm talking about the greatness of this One who is introduced: "Has spoken at the end of those, for these times in Son." No article, in Son.

What is the meaning of Son or sonship? Always fullness, always fullness. The fullness of the Father is in the Son, divinely conceived. The Son is the fullness of the Father. Firstborn is the fullness, takes up all that is of and in the Father. Fullness. And as we said, sonship is finality, is finality. And then as to this letter, as to the whole revelation, sonship as here revealed, explained through this letter, and at, in the first chapters particularly: superiority. Using that word in its right sense, superiority.

Do you notice the superiority of this Son? Appointed heir of all things. Catalog, the catalog here of things superior to Moses. You have it. Superior to Joshua. If Joshua had brought them into the rest, there'd be no more. He didn't. Therefore he never reached finality. Just superior to Joshua, this was this Son. To Moses, to Joshua, to angels. Superior to angels. And think of the angelic ministry right through the Bible. Their ministry, visitation, deliverances, activities. One angel in one night by a breath of his nostrils wiping out a whole mighty army investing Jerusalem. One angel. Think of all and the old covenant was mediated by angels, etc. This, our this letter's arguing about the angels who ministered the old covenant. Yes, superior to angels. Superior to Aaron and all his system and economy of priesthood. Superior to that. Comes under the "not."

The tabernacle that was, this letter says there was a tabernacle. Past tense. There was a tabernacle and there was a holiest of holies and a holy place. There was. Superior is Christ to all that, and what a place it had. Superior to the old covenant, and this letter deals with the covenant, the old covenant. And the day comes, quoting Jeremiah 31:31, "The day comes," saith the Lord, "and I make a new covenant." This letter has a lot to say about the new covenant. Superior to all the sacrifices. Millions upon millions of sacrifices slain through the generations. Think of the river and ocean of blood of those sacrifices. Immeasurable humanly speaking, covering centuries. How vast. One sacrifice only. One shedding of blood only. Superior to the whole lot. Not, but. It's what we've come to.

Well, shall we go on? This is the letter, isn't it? Substance. How great then is sonship in Christ. How much vaster than any traditional or historical expression, representation, system, order, economy. We have come to this.

Now I must close somewhere. What is, what is the consummate issue of all this? Can we bring it all, what we've said and all that can be said and could not be said, can we bring it down to one inclusive, comprehensive issue? We can. We can. Although I don't know about you, you may have doubts as I have about some translations, new translations of the New Testament. But I do thank God for this Amplified. I do, because at this very point it has helped me as nothing else has helped me.

You see, I have studied theology. I have studied Christian doctrine. I know the doctrines of grace. I know the Letter to the Romans. Think I do. At any rate, I'm fairly well acquainted with what is there and what the theologians have said about it and the doctrinaires. And when you mention the Letter to the Romans, of course Luther and all the rest spring into view with their phrase: Justification by Faith. Righteousness by Faith. Oh, I tell you, friends, that strikes me cold. May not you, it may mean a lot to you, but to me as one who has, you see, had to deal with all this theology and doctrine and the system of Christianity in its doctrines and so on. It's awfully wearisome. Theology is a very wearisome thing, isn't it? Deadly thing I think.

But this version has come to my rescue when I read and heard the word righteousness. What did it mean? Well, you see in the Old Testament, the symbol of righteousness is brass in the symbolism. Brass. Oh, how hard is brass. How cold is brass. I'm not interested in brass. You follow and you understand what I mean. And that's what that word came to mean to me even in the New Testament. All glorious teaching, I'm not talking about the teaching, talking about the phraseology, the terminology. What is it that is represented there? Now here my version has rescued me. Oh, I'm basking in the sunlight of this every day now, rejoicing in this. What does it say? Wherever that word righteousness or justification occurs in the Amplified New Testament, you have: right standing with God.

Right standing with God. Dismiss your theology, that's it. That has been the quest of humanity from the beginning. It doesn't matter where you go in the darkest heathenism, the most ignorant, unenlightened realms of humanity right through, right through all the strata, the one thing, whether man will put it into words or not, whether it's in his phraseology or vocabulary, the one thing deep down in every human creature is to be on right standing with God.

All these heathen rites, sacrifices, rituals, after all they're trying to find a place of right standing with the, with—well, they say God. They may have no right conception of who God is, what God is. "He whom they ignorantly worship," said Paul, "him declare we unto you, the unknown God." Here it is.

I remember very early in my Christian life, I tackled a monumental book. Professor Edward Caird's History of Religion in the Greek Philosophers. Don't you tackle it, I nearly spun around. But in this, this magnum opus, Caird concentrated it all into one statement. There is not a human being on this earth of any race whatever who does not have a consciousness of standing in relation to some supreme object of worship whom he calls God. Is that true? Of course it is, everywhere. A consciousness of standing in relation to a supreme object of reverence and he calls that object God. He doesn't know anything about that object, but he just calls it God.

Now then, here we are: the quest of humanity all through with greater or lesser enlightenment and understanding, or little or none or much. After all, within is the quest to be on good terms with this object called God. To be on right standing with God. Now you'll start all over again with the beginning of Hebrews. Here is the one: the Son. The Son. And the great thing about this Son, the glorious thing about this Son is He is in right standing with God. All this other in the past was an attempt to get onto right standing with God and it never, never did it. It was a failure. The quest for right standing with God. Here's the Son, first of all, inclusively, comprehensively, the Beloved of the Father. "The Beloved Son, my Beloved Son." Could you have terms that more gloriously express right standing with God? Right standing with God. Think on that, dwell on that.

And then the letter goes on in bringing many sons to glory. And all the rest of the letter which we leave now is the way of the right standing with God in the Son. Glorious letter. How great, comprehensive, wonderful this is. It is, that's only the fringe of it. We get more into it later, the Lord will. But I think you've really got enough for the time being. The Lord help us, we pray.

Oh, send thy Spirit, Lord, now unto me each one, that He may touch our eyes, make us see, make us see. Oh Lord, that the result of this hour in thy word with thee might be that this people will really be able to say, not mentally but in the heart, "I have seen the Lord." I have in some new, more wonderful way seen God's Son, seen what God is doing, and that we are able, Lord, to understand now what we are. What we are: God's new and final Israel. Teach us more of what that means but set thy seal upon this time.

Now, Lord, there's a little interval, and immediately this is closed now, people are going to turn and talk about all sorts of things. Save us, Lord. The whole value of this can go in five minutes if we are not very watchful. Not very watchful, setting a seal against our lips, having the door of our heart kept. Lord, help us, for we are not here just for meetings and messages, we are here for life crises you precipitate, Lord. For thine name's sake, amen.