-
I'm absolutely convinced what we need
-
in our families more than anything else
-
are men and women who are putting on the new man
-
in the power of God.
-
Men that are living by faith,
-
women that are living lives looking to Christ.
-
Full of the Spirit. Full of the power of God.
-
Full of joy.
-
I really believe that this is the heart and soul of healthy families.
-
That's why I don't believe, brethren, that I've strayed at all.
-
Last week, as I've been progressing through Ephesians 4
-
I came across that verse there in 4:30
-
that has to do with grieving the Spirit.
-
Well, from there I jumped back into Ephesians 3,
-
simply because one of the main operations
-
of the Spirit is described there.
-
And if we grieve the Spirit,
-
then we quench such operations.
-
So it's key.
-
If we live in families where the Spirit of God is quenched,
-
true Christians though you may be,
-
you can not survive spiritually without the power of God.
-
Jesus said it. "Without Me, you can do nothing."
-
And of course, what He means by that
-
as we look at His teaching,
-
when He said that He was leaving,
-
How can we live with Him -
-
without Him we can't do anything.
-
How can we live with Him when He is departed?
-
Well, He said, "I'm not going to leave you orphans."
-
And what He did was He sent us the Spirit of God
-
to be with us.
-
And He lives with us.
-
And in us, by way of that Spirit.
-
That Spirit is the channel by which,
-
that Spirit is the Person of the Godhead
-
that puts the fire and the energy
-
into the life of the child of God.
-
Now, brethren, I'm not ready to leave it.
-
What we dealt with last week and not grieving the Spirit.
-
Then I went back to Ephesians 3.
-
I'm not ready to leave there.
-
In fact, I'm probably going to stay there next week as well.
-
And then after that, Mack Tomlinson's coming in.
-
I don't know if this is going to just be more
-
of a devotional this morning.
-
I don't know what this is going to turn out to be.
-
I know where I want to go with it.
-
And I guess where I'd like us to go right now...
-
there's that simple passage there in Ephesians 4:30,
-
it says, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God."
-
And by which we've been sealed
-
to the day of Redemption.
-
Now, brethren, let me just say something about that.
-
Sealed. It's interesting - you find this idea 3 times
-
in the New Testament, twice in Ephesians,
-
that we've been sealed by the Spirit.
-
Well, actually, the first time Paul talks about this concept...
-
What's a seal? Before I jump any further?
-
What's a seal?
-
Basically, if you had a document,
-
and they would have taken some melted wax possibly,
-
and put it on that document right where it folded over,
-
and pressed a ring into it or something.
-
Basically, that seal would have been a mark
-
as to who that document was composed by,
-
or who it belonged to.
-
Whose authority stood behind it.
-
Now here's what the apostle says, the first time
-
to the Ephesians back in chapter 1
-
when he talks to them about the fact that they're sealed.
-
He says that the Spirit of God has sealed them,
-
and then He says this Spirit is the guarantee
-
of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it.
-
Brethren, the idea is this:
-
The Spirit of God has been given to us
-
who have not yet reached glory,
-
as a guarantee.
-
And I can tell you this:
-
Something is not a guarantee unless
-
you know it's there.
-
It's basically the idea of a down payment.
-
It's basically the idea of that pre-payment
-
that's made that gaurantees that
-
all the rest is going to come.
-
And I can tell you this,
-
if you were selling something and you demanded
-
a down payment from somebody, and they say,
-
"Well yes, I've given it to you, but you can't see it."
-
It's invisible, it's hidden.
-
There's no clear and visible marks to it.
-
Well, that doesn't do any good.
-
What guarantees us, what brings us that assurance
-
in this life is that the Spirit of God is in our lives.
-
He's within us; He's with us; He empowers us.
-
He does things within us that we see,
-
we feel, we experience, they affect us.
-
And in so doing we look at that and we say,
-
"Wow, I'm one of the Lord's."
-
Have you never read right there in Romans 5
-
that it says that the Spirit of God
-
pours the love of God into our heart?
-
Have you never read there in Romans 8,
-
that it says that that Spirit bears witness with our spirit
-
that we're children of God.
-
That's what happens. We have a witness bearing.
-
We have love being poured in.
-
We have operations.
-
The very heart of God is communicated to us
-
by way of the Spirit.
-
And that's exactly what we were looking at
-
in Ephesians 3 last week,
-
so let's go back there and read that.
-
Ephesians 3:14 - you see, brethren,
-
the reason I jump back here is
-
because if we grieve the Spirit Who pours
-
the love of God into our hearts,
-
if we grieve the Spirit Who
-
proclaims to us that we are children of God;
-
if we grieve the Spirit Who makes
-
the love of Christ comprehendable,
-
then His fiery influences are quenched.
-
And we don't want to do that.
-
Oh, if there's anything that's key to healthy families,
-
brethren, it's right here.
-
I'll tell you this, the most transformed families,
-
the most growing families, the most blessed families,
-
are where the Spirit of God is most powerfully
-
and actively demonstrating His influences.
-
No question about it. Brethren, we want to be sensitive
-
that we do not grieve Him.
-
So let's go back there, Ephesians 3:14
-
"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,
-
from Whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,
-
that according to the riches of His glory,
-
He may grant you to be strengthened with power
-
through His Spirit in your inner being,
-
so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith,
-
that you being rooted and grounded in love
-
may have strength to comprehend with all the saints
-
what is the breadth, and length, and height and depth
-
and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,
-
that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."
-
Now brethren, I don't know whether
-
it occurred to you just now,
-
But this is a prayer.
-
Do you all see that?
-
Paul is bowing his knees in verse 14.
-
Why?
-
Because he's praying. This is a prayer.
-
You bow your knees when you pray.
-
He's lifting up the Ephesians
-
in the sight of God.
-
He's praying for them.
-
Brethren, let me ask you this.
-
Why?
-
Why do you think he's praying for the Christians at Ephesus?
-
Brethren, probably because as an apostle
-
who had visited many churches and started many churches
-
and planted many churches, and as one
-
who was a Christian himself,
-
he likely understood that the people at Ephesus
-
were just like you and me.
-
Struggling people. Real people.
-
Brethren, I think sometimes we can get to thinking
-
that because somebody - you know, the Ephesians,
-
there they are, they're addressed by an apostle of Jesus Christ.
-
They're called faithful.
-
And I think sometimes we get the idea
-
that because people are mentioned in the Bible,
-
and they lived a long way away, a long time in the past,
-
and because we don't know them personally,
-
we can make super-Christians out of them.
-
We can think them to be something that they weren't.
-
You know what? Look, I know reality.
-
Reality in this church.
-
You know what reality in this church is?
-
Men and women get married.
-
They find out that Paul, when he said that
-
he would spare people from difficulties,
-
they get into marriage, and they find out,
-
wow, that was true, we've got difficulties.
-
We've got men who are striving to learn
-
how to love their wives,
-
women who are striving to learn how to
-
submit to their husbands.
-
Love their husbands.
-
Men and women that are struggling to figure out
-
how to raise their children; love their children.
-
Properly discipline their children.
-
I mean, you haven't had children if you think it's easy
-
to just tow the line with regard to spanking and discipline
-
and basically to set up the boundaries and to keep that perfectly,
-
and to not compromise.
-
Brethren, you know what?
-
The ravages of divorce were real in that day.
-
There were families without fathers, families without mothers.
-
There were families where deaths occurred.
-
There were people that were struggling.
-
Look! Sometimes we have problems in our marraiges
-
that we feel embarrassed.
-
Sometimes there's sexual issues
-
and there's struggles between husband and wife.
-
Things that a lot of times we're embarrassed.
-
Brethren, I'll tell you, it was real life back then.
-
The same things that you struggle with,
-
that you get angry over, that you have problems with,
-
making ends meet, getting angry over your wife
-
because she spent too much money,
-
you don't know how you're going to be able to pay the bills
-
and she's out there buying this and that.
-
Men can do the same thing.
-
Brethren, the realities, the things that cause frustration
-
in your life, in my life, the greatest hindrances
-
to moving and excelling in our families,
-
they were real back then, brethren.
-
The people back then were just like us.
-
Paul wrote this letter to the Ephesians.
-
When you and I read it, we find,
-
wow, it helps us. It's really tremendous.
-
It's helpful. You know what?
-
It was to them too.
-
Why? Because they're just like us.
-
Brethren, the same thing...
-
the reason Paul's words seem so real,
-
so alive, so applicable to us,
-
when they were in fact first spoken to the Ephesians
-
is because we're the same.
-
There's nothing new under the sun.
-
But here's the thing.
-
Brethren, think with me.
-
Here we are. We're in prayer meeting.
-
It's not Sunday morning anyways, it's Wednesday evening.
-
We meet here. We get together to pray.
-
Let's just say, a sister says,
-
"I'm married to a lost husband."
-
She's here by herself, with her children.
-
I'm married to a lost husband.
-
Church would you please pray for me?
-
I'm really having problems.
-
Maybe the husband hits her.
-
Maybe the husband is just lazy.
-
Maybe he's a heavy drinker.
-
Any number of these kind of problems can come up.
-
Brethren, think about how we typically pray.
-
How do we typically pray?
-
Think. How would you?
-
We have several brethren and they pray,
-
"Lord, please help our sister."
-
There's nothing wrong with that. That's good, that's fine.
-
I mean what I'm about to say is just an example.
-
I've been to prayer meetings for the last twenty years of my life.
-
I've heard lots of them. I know how the brethren pray.
-
And I'm not fault finding at all.
-
It's fine. It's good. It's well.
-
We'll get together and we'll pray.
-
And there are different levels of maturity
-
obviously in the prayers that come forth.
-
But how often the prayer is, "Lord, bless them."
-
That's a very common thing.
-
"Lord, bless them." That's kind of where the new Christian goes.
-
There's not a whole lot of depth there, but just "bless them."
-
"Lord, help them." "Lord, our sister..."
-
we recite back the things that are happening.
-
"Lord, please protect her."
-
A lot of times we pray, "correct the problem, Lord."
-
She's got a lazy husband - make him work.
-
She's got a drunk husband - make him quit.
-
She's got a husband that beats her - make him stop.
-
Lord, save him.
-
Those are very common ways to pray.
-
Listen. You know this is true.
-
The ways that Paul prays
-
they almost stagger us.
-
It's almost like, "what?"
-
It's like his words are so profound and so deep
-
and he's got so many thoughts in there,
-
it's like you almost have to read the thing for six weeks
-
to even draw out what he's saying.
-
Brethren, listen to this:
-
"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father."
-
Ok, so far we're good. Right? We kind of get that.
-
"From Whom every family in heaven and on earth is named."
-
Now there I stop getting everything.
-
"Every family in heaven and on earth is named."
-
It's crossed my mind, I need to look at the original there
-
and really scope that out.
-
There's some concepts there that Paul's hitting on
-
that I think are probably phenomenal.
-
"That according to the riches of His glory, He may grant you
-
to be strengthened with power..."
-
Strength. Now, just catch that.
-
That's a good thing. We want to be strong.
-
And he's of course speaking about spiritual strength.
-
And that spiritual strength comes from power.
-
Right? Power. Energy.
-
Power is what brings strength.
-
"Through His Spirit." So the Spirit is that Person
-
Who dispenses this power of God to us.
-
"So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith,
-
that you being rooted and grounded in love."
-
So, I mean, he's saying this stuff,
-
"That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith."
-
We get that. By faith, He dwells in us.
-
Of course, He dwells in us by this very Spirit.
-
"You being rooted and grounded in love."
-
So it's like you're planted. You're a plant of God's planting,
-
and you're planted in the soil of love.
-
And in this soil of love, with by faith Christ and His Spirit
-
dwelling within you, the Spirit Who is this power giver,
-
That gives strength, to do what?
-
What's all this strength about anyway?
-
Verse 18, "may have strength to comprehend with all the saints
-
what is the breadth and length and height and depth
-
and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge
-
that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."
-
Now brethren, this is the way to pray.
-
Because let me tell you something.
-
Think with me here, brethren. Think with me.
-
You've got a mother. This is real life.
-
A mother who is about going over the edge.
-
Her head's about going under the water.
-
I mean, here she is, she's trying to figure out how to be a mother.
-
Trying to figure out how to raise some little children.
-
She's trying to figure out how to dish out her time.
-
And then her husband comes home.
-
He wants her attention. He wants to talk to her.
-
He wants to communicate with her.
-
He wants dinner. He wants intimacy.
-
He wants this... she's just staggering all over the place.
-
There she is at home one day,
-
and you come along and pray like this.
-
I come along and I call her up pastorally,
-
and say, "Sister, I know you're struggling here,
-
I'm going to bow my knees before the Father,
-
I'm going to begin to pray to Him from Whom
-
every family in heaven and on earth is named.
-
That according to the riches of His glory He may grant
-
you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit
-
in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your heart
-
through faith, sister, so that you being rooted and gounded
-
in love may have strength to comprehend with all the saints
-
what is the breadth and length and height and depth
-
and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge
-
that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."
-
Now I don't know, typically, but I'm thinking that
-
if I just rattled that off, it'd just be like whew...
-
that's nice, brother.
-
But I think she gets off the phone
-
and she goes back to being overwhelmed, right?
-
Brethren, we can look at this and we can think,
-
"Come on, Paul! You're dealing with real people
-
here with real problems. Can't you just pray,
-
God, help the ladies in the church that are
-
struggling with raising children?
-
Can't you just come down off your theological high horse here
-
and just meet us where we live?
-
Brethren, I can only imagine Paul might answer
-
something like this, you know, you read it there
-
1 Thessalonians 2, he had a nursing heart,
-
like a mother who nursed her children.
-
He said that he was like a father to his children.
-
I'll tell you this, he'd come along and he'd say,
-
"Oh, my precious, precious children,
-
in the midst of all your struggles and trials,
-
do you not realize that the reason I pray this way for you
-
is this is exactly what you need more than anything else."
-
Now it's true there may be complexities here,
-
and there may be depth here,
-
but brethren,
-
this is what we need.
-
More than anything else.
-
If you could just comprehend.
-
Brethren, I want you to see what's going on.
-
Paul is praying for comprehension.
-
He realizes this: He realizes that when that mother,
-
in that place, is sitting there with those children
-
in that home, with her certain set of
-
struggles and trials,
-
or that man as he's trying to make ends meet
-
as he's trying to provide for his family,
-
lead his wife, love his wife, lead his children,
-
instruct his children - in all these things,
-
as he feels his failures, he feels the struggles of the flesh,
-
he feels these things.
-
Singles that are trying to keep single
-
and to do it with contentment,
-
as you feel these struggles of life.
-
What Paul breaks in there and says,
-
Look, it's fine to pray that God bless one another,
-
it's fine to pray that God help one another,
-
but what you folks need more than anything
-
is what I'm praying for right here.
-
You need a comprehension of certain realities.
-
But if you could just see them, if you could feel them
-
if you could touch them,
-
if you could have the hope in those things,
-
you would come back to this world's cares and troubles
-
as one has said, like giants refreshed with new wine
-
caring nothing for anything that might happen.
-
Christ would be so sweetly and blessedly within you
-
that you could bear the burden and think nothing of it.
-
Brethren, that's precisely where Paul is going,
-
that's what he's praying for.
-
The ability in you, in me, to be able to comprehend.
-
The greatest realities -
-
the love Christ has for His chosen people.
-
Brethren, what was it it said in that song?
-
It was that last stanza of "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing."
-
It said something about, "Lord, don't deny me Yourself."
-
Brethren, the love of Christ...
-
it was Spurgeon that said that giant thing.
-
He's right.
-
You will be like a giant refreshed with new wine,
-
if you'll be struck by the love of Christ.
-
You see, Paul wasn't trying to drown us theologically.
-
He was bypassing the lesser things,
-
the more trivial things,
-
and he was going right to the heart of the matter.
-
He knows if that sister with the lost husband
-
would realize her true and heavenly Husband,
-
and the love that He had for her,
-
Oh, brethren, has it ever just swept into you
-
where Christ is like there in John 17,
-
and He's saying, "Father, I pray that they may be where I am."
-
"I pray that they may see My glory."
-
Brethren, I'll tell you this, have you ever read
-
where it talks about the love that a man ought to have
-
for his wife, but then Paul pulls back and
-
shows us the love that Christ has for the church.
-
Brethren, Christ - His whole heart is set on it.
-
You have to understand something,
-
God has chosen to put an infinite love on you.
-
Do you know why Christ went to that cross
-
and bore infinite wrath? He did it out of love.
-
Scripture repeatedly tells us it's love that
-
drove Him to that cross.
-
It's love that as in the garden, He just trembled
-
under that coming horror.
-
He sorrowed nigh unto death.
-
Why did He keep going?
-
Yes, there was a joy there, brethren,
-
but I'll tell you this, it's the joy.
-
It is that joy to be with His people.
-
It is that joy to have them and be with them.
-
He longs for that.
-
The Christ longs for it.
-
He prayed to His Father for it.
-
He wants you with inexpressible love to be where He is.
-
Brethren, I'll tell you this, if it wasn't for love,
-
for the purposes of love, and for the sake of love
-
to leave you right here where you have your present struggles
-
love would bust open right now
-
and He would pull you into His arms and take you to glory.
-
It is only love that keeps you here.
-
Brethren, the love...
-
and Paul is saying if you could just comprehend
-
that Christ is there and His heart longs for you.
-
He wants you to be where He is.
-
He is your heavenly Lover.
-
And He loves you with a love that this world does not know.
-
That your husband and wife relationships don't know.
-
He loves you passionately.
-
He means to make you pure and spotless,
-
and to bring you to Him an undefiled, chaste virgin.
-
A virgin, brethren.
-
A virgin pure.
-
And He will take you to Himself,
-
and He will love on you,
-
and pour His love into you forever
-
and forever and forever and forever.
-
Brethren, you'll go to Him a virgin but you will not stay a virgin
-
because He will love you in ways that what we have
-
in the human realm, in the physical realm, are only but glimpses.
-
And I'm telling you, brethren, He'd break through right now
-
and come get you, if it wasn't for the fact
-
that love stays His hand.
-
Because it is the very temporary light afflictions
-
that work in you the eternal weight of glory.
-
And it's working. You see, brethren,
-
you suffer now because it's granted you to suffer,
-
because it's good for you right now.
-
We're following that path where He went.
-
And Paul's coming in and saying, "Brothers and sisters,
-
I am not trying to lose you theologically.
-
I am simply trying to pray that you would have the best thing,
-
the greatest thing, brethren, we need to pray this way!
-
When you see that brother, that sister, struggling,
-
you pray that God open up to their comprehension
-
an understanding of the love that Christ has for them.
-
Because brethren, Spurgeon's right:
-
Giants you will be,
-
refreshed with the wine of Christ's own vintage.
-
And you will face those things, and you will be able
-
to march through them, and have victory.
-
Brethren, when you're overcome with love,
-
the problems and the struggles and the trials in this world
-
they just, they don't disappear and go away altogether,
-
but they become small in comparison.
-
Brethren, do you realize it?
-
I went out front this morning of my house.
-
And I've planted various trees there
-
to try to recreate Michigan.
-
Hey, don't laugh, it's kind of worked.
-
I have maples that are red, and yellow, and orange.
-
And I was out there looking at them,
-
and I was admiring the beauty,
-
and brethren, the love of Christ is like a garden,
-
where as you walk through, there is beauty,
-
there's roses, and the scents that comes, and there's fruits.
-
And let me tell you something, brethren.
-
Those that find eternal life,
-
Christ is the way, the truth, and the life.
-
Brethren, those that find Him are few.
-
Do you realize, brethren, not just anybody can tread that garden.
-
Only a few.. brethren, only a chosen few can tread there.
-
In that garden, there is beauty and there are flowers.
-
It is full of healing and singing and color and wonder.
-
And I'm telling you folks, if you have license to walk there,
-
Oh brethren, why do you forfeit it?
-
Only a very choice few, select few, can walk there.
-
How often we purposely do not walk there, brethren!
-
But to walk in the air of that place, in that garden.
-
Only the redeemed of the Lord can walk in that place.
-
Only the redeemed of the Lord, brethren,
-
can go up and smell those roses! Or pick that fruit!
-
And you have the opportunity.
-
Are you going to be like the man in Pilgrim's Progress
-
where you're just raking the muck, raking the muck,
-
here the garden is all about you.
-
We're Christians, brethren, we're Christians!
-
Christ loves us!
-
And even in this world, there is a comprehension.
-
If you don't grieve the Spirit, the Spirit has a power
-
that He endows upon the children of God
-
to cause us to comprehend such vastness,
-
such breadth and length and height and depth, brethren,
-
to stagger us, even in this life!
-
We don't have to wait for heaven to get all of it.
-
And oh, brethren, if we've been invited to walk here, why?
-
Why so much of the world? Why so much of just raking,
-
brethren, raking the muck?
-
When it's held out there to us?
-
Brethren, I just say in light of all this,
-
don't grieve the Spirit.
-
Brethren, when you grieve the Spirit,
-
the scent wafts away.
-
All of a sudden, in your sight, the fruit shrivels.
-
The Spirit is the One that gives the comprehension.
-
Brethren, listen to this:
-
I came across this in my reading.
-
And I really want to finish out this message on this note.
-
A man by the name of Edward Payson,
-
anyone ever hear that name? Edward Payson.
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He was a godly man who lived here in the United States
-
during the time just after the American Revolution.
-
Listen, listen to him describe how the ungrieved Spirit...
-
the Spirit wasn't grieved in his life - ungrieved.
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How that Spirit flooded His comprehensions.
-
He says this, "The Son of Righteousness has been
-
gradually drawing nearer and nearer."
-
Brethren, I know we've been talking about revival.
-
And I know that there have been times in history
-
where the Spirit of God has fallen suddenly.
-
But brethren, one of the things I'm encouraging
-
and arguing for here is that you make it a practice
-
to seek to habitually live with the Spirit ungrieved.
-
Habitually living in the beauties of this garden.
-
Oh, revival's great.
-
And when people are smothered by the love of God
-
instantaneously and miraculously and extraordinarily
-
that's great, but brethren, there are people who walk
-
in these choice places far more than others.
-
They tend to live there. They tend to dwell there.
-
And here's a man, brethren, here's a man
-
that didn't always know it was so.
-
He didn't know the realms into which it was possible.
-
Listen to how he expresses this.
-
It's like he gets to the end and he's just kicking himself.
-
He's saying, "Oh, if only I would have realized
-
twenty years ago that this was all real! That it was so!"
-
Listen to him, "the Son of Righteousness
-
has been gradually drawing nearer and nearer.
-
Appearing larger and brighter as He approached."
-
I mean, through his spiritual senses he feels
-
and senses and sees and hears and smells
-
the approach of Christ.
-
"And now Christ fills the whole hemisphere.
-
Pouring forth a flood of glory in which I seem to float,
-
like an insect in the beams of the sun.
-
Exalting yet almost trembling while I gaze on this almost
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excessive brightness and wondering with
-
unutterable wonder why God should deign to shine
-
upon a sinful world."
-
Listen, he goes on,
-
"Christians might avoid much trouble and inconvenience
-
if they would only believe what they profess.
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That God is able to make them happy without anything else."
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Do you know what he's saying, brethren?
-
He's saying take everything else away.
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Take all your comforts away. All your enjoyments away.
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All your pleasures away. All your toys away.
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All the idols away. All the stuff. Clear it all out.
-
All the relationships.
-
And walk through this garden.
-
And it's enough. It will make you happy
-
with a joy that only comes from heaven, folks.
-
"They imagine that if such-and-such a dear friend were to die
-
or if such blessings were to be removed,
-
they would be miserable.
-
Whereas God can make them a thousand times
-
happier without those things.
-
To mention my own case,
-
God has been depriving me of one blessing after another.
-
But as each one was removed,
-
He has come in and filled its place.
-
And now, when I'm a cripple, and I'm not able to move,
-
I'm happier than ever.
-
I'm happer than ever I was in my life
-
before or ever expected to be.
-
And if I had believed this twenty years ago,
-
I might have been spared much anxiety."
-
So here it is.
-
Listen to this.
-
Here's a test put forth by the same man.
-
He gives a very practical way to examine ourselves,
-
in order to test where we're at with regards
-
to the love of Christ.
-
And whether we may have grieved the Spirit away
-
from pouring the love of God into our hearts.
-
Now listen to this:
-
Brethren, I know this is true.
-
It caught my attention because I know it.
-
I know it. I've seen it as a Christian.
-
I've felt it in my own life.
-
I've gone through seasons.
-
I've met other Christians.
-
I've read of other Christians.
-
Not just people who've had the Spirit of God fall on them,
-
and been filled with the Spirit,
-
and had some sensation of the love of Christ
-
that was just momentary or for a short season.
-
Now that's happened, and we certainly don't want
-
to despise that, but I'm talking more here
-
about a way of life.
-
Listen to what Payson says,
-
"Suppose professors of religion,
-
(those who profess to be Christians),
-
to be ranged in different concentric circles around Christ."
-
So He's imagining Christ in the center,
-
and then you have these concentric circles.
-
A concentric circle is another circle with the same center.
-
But they're getting bigger.
-
Same center. Which is Christ. There He is in the middle.
-
But then you have these concentric circles moving out from there.
-
And he says each of these concentric circles is
-
like different Christians.
-
Different Christians live at these different concentric circles,
-
moving out and away from the middle.
-
He says, "Some value the presence of their Savior so highly
-
they cannot bear to be at any removed from Him.
-
Even their work, they will bring up and do it
-
in the light of His countenance."
-
And I want you to see what Payson recognized,
-
you don't have to be a pastor or a missionary
-
or in some certain designated church ministry
-
for this to happen.
-
That's not the case.
-
Remember, brethren, remember!
-
That you might have strength to comprehend
-
with all the saints
-
what is the breadth and length and height and depth.
-
It's for all the saints, brethren, it's not just for the pastor.
-
"They cannot bear to be at any removed from Christ,
-
even their work they will bring up and do it
-
in the light of His countenance. Whatever work that is.
-
Whether it's in ministry, whether it's building,
-
construction, plumber... and while engaged in it
-
will be seen constantly raising their eyes to Him
-
as if fearful of losing one beam of His light."
-
Brethren, here's the truth, every child of God
-
definitely knows the love of Christ.
-
But not every child of God definitely knows that love
-
to the same degree.
-
Not all of us walk in the same circles.
-
Not all of us live as close to Christ as others do or have.
-
That's just a reality.
-
Brethren, the innermost circle represents those...
-
I can tell you this,
-
when you live in the innermost circles,
-
you are sensitive to Christ's love.
-
Brethren, Christ saved us to love us.
-
He loved us and He saved us,
-
and He saved us to love us.
-
And those that live closest, they are sensitive
-
to His approaches, they are sensitive.
-
That's what characterizes people here.
-
They watch for that love.
-
They watch to respond to that love.
-
Brethren, this is the real test of whether you're
-
maturing as a Christian.
-
It isn't simple whether today you can articulate
-
limited atonement where you couldn't a year ago.
-
Brethren, the real test, the real key to maturing
-
in the Christian life is how close to Christ you're walking.
-
How close to Him you live.
-
How much of His love you're bathed in.
-
And I gaurantee this, just that reality of 2 Cointhians 3:18
-
Brethren, the closer you live to the glory,
-
the more you behold His glory,
-
the more you are becoming conformed to that image.
-
Brethren, some just live closer.
-
That's a fact.
-
They live where there's greater apprehensions of Christ's love.
-
And I'll tell you this, children of God that live
-
in this innermost circle, they must be careful.
-
You say, what do you mean?
-
Have you ever thought about Moses?
-
God would say if I'm going to speak to one
-
of the prophets, I'm going to do it through a vision,
-
through a dream.
-
He says when I speak to Moses, it's face to face.
-
Can I tell you this?
-
Moses struck the rock.
-
How many of us have done some fool thing like that?
-
in disobedience to God?
-
Yet the consequences were not so severe. Why?
-
Brethren, I'll tell you what, when you live
-
in those inner circles, you must walk carefully.
-
Martyn Lloyd-Jones says the air here is very pure
-
and very rarified,
-
and slight changes are immediately felt.
-
Responsiveness to Christ's approaches must set us to
-
a careful watch, brethren.
-
Think about Moses.
-
Those who walk in the innermost concentric circles,
-
must develop a holy sensitivity to the advances of Christ.
-
They must be sensitive to sin. Sensitive to their conscience.
-
Sensitive to any grieving of the Spirit of God.
-
Brethren, do you remember how it was?
-
There in the Song of Solomon 5?
-
We find that the woman there,
-
she had taken her clothes off.
-
She had removed her garment, it says,
-
and she had washed her feet.
-
And she was there at the bed,
-
and her beloved came to the door.
-
And you get that wonderful intimacy, that language there,
-
that just flows out of that first part of Song of Solomon 5.
-
But what happened? He's knocking on the door.
-
Here's the advance. He's come to just immerse her in love.
-
And there was hesitation. Did you catch that?
-
There was a hesitation.
-
She had the thought go through her head.
-
Wait, I've put my garment off, I've washed my feet.
-
There was the hesitation.
-
Brethern, the people that walk in those
-
innermost concentric circles...
-
By the way, that lady was not at that moment
-
living in the inner circle.
-
There was a hesitation.
-
And when she got to the door, her beloved was gone.
-
Brethren, I guarantee you, there are times in life
-
that Christ waits to smother you in His love.
-
But you do not respond to His advances.
-
You say, can you prove that from the Scriptures?
-
Well, brethren, it's everywhere.
-
But how about this?
-
I mean, speaking to a church,
-
speaking to a group of covenant people,
-
not the lost indiscriminate masses.
-
He's speaking to a church, brethren.
-
And He says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock."
-
And He says, "if you will open to Me, I will come in."
-
And do what?
-
"Dine with you." Brethren, in that near Eastern,
-
middle Eastern mindset, to have somebody
-
come into your house and dine with you
-
was a sign of intimacy.
-
You know in the Muslim world,
-
for them to bring you in
-
and have you for dinner in their home
-
means that they are now under an obligation now to protect you.
-
Brethren, there's an intimacy I think that sometimes
-
we don't feel in our culture.
-
But Christ was saying, "I stand here."
-
Brethren, those that have used that illustration for
-
Christ calling the lost multitudes,
-
that's just simply not what this is talking about.
-
Don't use that verse in that context.
-
That's not what it means.
-
He's speaking to His covenant people,
-
and He's saying, "Look, I stand here."
-
He just got done saying, "Those that I love, I chasten."
-
And He's saying, "I stand here."
-
He's been talking to those He loves, brethren.
-
Brethren, to live in this inner circle,
-
here's what it takes:
-
the slightest tug of heart...
-
I mean, you're sitting down to a meal,
-
and you feel "Christ wants me to fast,"
-
"He wants me to go be with Him."
-
You're laying down on your bed,
-
you feel Christ wants me to put my clothes on
-
and go out and walk the fields and commune with Him.
-
You're at work, you're in the middle of something,
-
but you feel like God wants me to pray right now,
-
the Lord is calling me.
-
Brethren, we put it off. No, just not yet.
-
But when we go there, it's like the young lady,
-
she goes to the door and He's gone!
-
Brethren, that happens. That happens when
-
you put off the loving advances of a lover.
-
That happens. That's how we cause grief.
-
Brethren, it's not like Christ is somehow foreign
-
and far removed. He's a Lover of His people.
-
And we know what grieves two people that are in love.
-
We know where the grief comes from.
-
We know the kind of things...
-
Brethren, when one lover is making an advance to another,
-
and it's put off, and it's resisted.
-
Or something is deemed to be more important,
-
then we come to the door and He's gone.
-
Boy, if we would have gone right when He called us.
-
He was calling us to His Word. He wanted to speak to us.
-
And when we get there...
-
well, it's not there now.
-
Brethren, if we're going to live in the innermost
-
concentric circles, there must be sensitivity.
-
Sensitivity, brethren, sensitivity!
-
Too many of us have too much noise,
-
too much clutter.
-
We can't hear when He's knocking at the door.
-
And brethren, you know how it is,
-
when two people are in love,
-
sometimes it's just - what?
-
You catch a glance from one another, right?
-
I mean, come on, you that are married...
-
it's just a look. It's a fleeting glance of the eyes,
-
and you saw something in your wife's eyes
-
or your husband's eyes that just shot back to you,
-
"I love you."
-
Brethren, Christ is the same, and His ways
-
of communicating His love are manifold.
-
But brethren, so often we've got so much noise,
-
we don't hear His voice.
-
We don't hear the knock.
-
Or we're so preoccupied with other things.
-
Brethren, Payson's describing the people in
-
these innermost circles, not as reading their Bibles perpetually.
-
But even when they're in the workplace,
-
they constantly have their eyes lifted up.
-
"Lord, is this pleasing to You?" "Lord, is this right?"
-
They're constantly talking. They're constantly singing.
-
Their minds are constantly set on things above.
-
They're constantly looking. They're constantly going there.
-
They're afraid - they don't ever want to get to the place
-
where they look up and "where is He?"
-
"He's gone," or "I've drifted away,"
-
"I've wandered away."
-
There's a fear, brethren, there's a fear
-
to live in this circle.
-
That you don't want to strike the rock
-
and now I can't go into the land of Canaan.
-
There's a sensitivity here. We need to be careful.
-
Remember Moses, brethren, remember.
-
The apostle Paul was one who sought to live in this realm.
-
Do you know there in 1 Corinthians 4:4, he says,
-
"I know nothing against myself."
-
Paul was a man who lived with a conscience
-
that was undefiled, all the time, before God and man.
-
Nothing, brethren, nothing.
-
I'm not saying he lived a perfect life,
-
but I'm saying he kept his conscience clear.
-
He let nothing stand between Him and Christ - nothing!
-
No idol in his life. No sin in his life.
-
Short accounts. He dealt with it right away, right away.
-
People that dwell in this innermost circle
-
of the love of Christ, that bask in that glow
-
more perpetually than all the rest of us.
-
Brethren, they're sensitive. They're sensitive.
-
They don't want to grieve Him, they don't want to
-
grieve His Spirit at all.
-
And this power just floods them.
-
And the more we strive, the more we give ourselves,
-
the more we try to be attentive to His advances,
-
and His glances, and His voice, brethren,
-
the more we will find that voice being heard.
-
And we will find that glance coming to our eye.
-
The more, brethren, the more.
-
Christ is not slow, brethren.
-
We need to be sensitive.
-
Brainerd. You guys know David Brainerd, many of you.
-
He worked among the Indians in the 1700's.
-
Brethren, he would confess his pride somewhat hourly
-
trying to keep sensitive, trying to keep short accounts,
-
trying to keep in the Presence.
-
Oh, brethren, as you are more and more
-
responsive to Christ and all His loving approaches,
-
your comprehension of His love will grow.
-
Don't let a frown of grief come across that Spirit at all.
-
Keep all the channels open. All of them flowing.
-
It's like that song says, "Nothing between, nothing between."
-
All of it out of there.
-
As Jude says, "Keep yourselves in the love of God."
-
Brethren, that's not about being saved.
-
That's about people, as our missionary in China loves to say,
-
brethren, it's a sensible sense of God's love.
-
Keep yourselves in the love of God.
-
That doesn't mean that once God loves me,
-
I can get away from His love.
-
His love is eternal. His love is everlasting.
-
When He lays His love upon somebody,
-
nobody can pluck them out of His hand.
-
That's not what He's talking about there.
-
The idea is, brethren, there is a place
-
where the love of Christ flows.
-
Get you there. Get there. Sit there. Find that place.
-
It takes sensitivity. It takes awareness.
-
I'll tell you this, the lazy aren't going to find that place.
-
Those that aren't committed to this;
-
those that are in love with the world;
-
those that would rather play at Christianity...
-
you're not going to find this place.
-
Keep yourselves sensitive, keep yourselves alert
-
in this rarified air, brethren, of the inner circles.
-
But then, here's Edward Payson.
-
"Others, to be sure,
-
would not be content to live out of Christ's presence,
-
but they're yet less wholly absorbed by it than these first ones
-
and may be seen a little further off,
-
engaged here and there in other various callings;
-
their eyes generally upon their work,
-
but often looking up for the light which they love."
-
You see, people, as we fall and we move further out
-
of these concentric circles,
-
the Spirit's work is somewhat more resisted.
-
We allow somewhat more of the grieving of the Spirit.
-
People in this category allow more noise,
-
more distractions.
-
Christ's knock at the door is less obvious.
-
It gets mistaken for other noises.
-
Their minds tend to stray from Christ for longer periods.
-
The young lady from the Song of Solomon,
-
at least at that point there where she put off her lover,
-
at least at that moment, she was in more
-
of these outward circles.
-
Brethren, you know what happens?
-
There's a hesitation in our obedience.
-
There's a hesitation in our love.
-
Isn't that what happened?
-
That lady when her lover came to the door,
-
she hesitated. Isn't that what happened?
-
She got to thinking, "well, I put my garment off,
-
I washed my feet." There was a hesitation.
-
Brethren, that is often what characterizes
-
what the difference is that characterizes
-
those in the innermost circles from the outermost.
-
We tend to move more outward from those
-
concentric circles of the love of Christ
-
when there's more hesitation.
-
There's more justifying that which probably
-
isn't good in our life.
-
They may be somewhat neutral things, but they're just stuff.
-
They're just filler.
-
We move more into the realm -
-
you know how it says in Philippians,
-
we need to approve what is excellent.
-
The ones in the innermost circles, they approve
-
what is most excellent.
-
As you begin to move out, people tolerate stuff that's good
-
at the expense of stuff that's excellent.
-
People in this realm, to be sure,
-
they're people that do love Christ.
-
People in this camp, the love for Christ is full,
-
it's rich, it's strong.
-
But that recently put off garment; those freshly washed feet,
-
often are the kinds of things that give rise to
-
such the hesitation that puts them in a class
-
as to where they get to the door and they don't enjoy
-
the overwhelming embraces of Christ.
-
He's gone.
-
Brethren, some of us are too calculated.
-
Over much calculation, over much deliberation,
-
over much hesitation - hesitations of doubt,
-
distractions by the world.
-
Brethren, it costs.
-
But moving outward still, Payson goes on to describe
-
this last category. He says this,
-
"A third class beyond these, but yet within the life-giving rays."
-
In his estimation, as he lived his life when he's writing this,
-
he's at the end of his life. He's observed,
-
there are people who are genuinely saved.
-
They're within the life-giving rays.
-
It includes a doubtful multitude.
-
"Many of whom are so much engaged in their worldly schemes,
-
that they may be seen standing sideways to Christ,
-
looking mostly the other way, and
-
only now and then turning their faces towards the light."
-
Brethren, you can see the picture, right?
-
Christ is here in the center, and they're in these fading
-
concentric circles, and they're standing sideways.
-
Which means, they can turn and glance.
-
The people in the inner circles,
-
they've got their eyes on Christ.
-
They're just afraid, lest they take them off.
-
The people as you move out, they tend to turn.
-
They tend to turn more and more to the side.
-
Until you get in the outer concentric circles
-
of what still remains to be true Christianity.
-
And brethren, a lot of people live there.
-
It's kind of like that picture that Spurgeon paints
-
of the love of Christ being an ocean to swim in.
-
And that most Chrsitians wade ankle deep.
-
Very, very few dive in to find it an ocean to swim in.
-
Brethren, what I want to ask you right now
-
is let's just bring it home.
-
Where are you at?
-
I mean is this true of you?
-
Where are you living? What are you content with?
-
Brethren, what happens in our life?
-
Can I tell you this?
-
Can you be a Christian and grieve the Spirit?
-
Obviously, or Paul wouldn't be telling those Ephesians not to do it.
-
Can you grieve the Spirit
-
and then His fiery influences are quenched?
-
And now this power doesn't flow in us, to comprehend this love?
-
Obviously, brethren, that's why there's danger
-
in quenching the Spirit.
-
That's why there's danger in grieving the Spirit.
-
We woudn't be told not to do it if it didn't matter.
-
It does matter.
-
It greatly matters.
-
But think about grieving the Spirit.
-
Think about it. What happens?
-
Brethren, I can remember one time as a kid,
-
my brother and I, we went to this carnival,
-
up there in Michigan, and we got on this
-
thing that went around in circles.
-
And what made it fun was that once it got going around,
-
it would shoot you way up in the air.
-
So there we were. My brother and I got in this thing,
-
we were spinning around, and every time we went around
-
by the ride operator, he'd shout something at us.
-
All the other cars are going up, ours wouldn't go up.
-
We just kept going in circles.
-
What made the ride fun was the fact you got to go up in the air.
-
But he kept shouting something. We couldn't hear him.
-
So we're moving around, moving this way,
-
going over here, we thought he wanted us
-
to move further in, further out.
-
We're moving all over, we're doing all this stuff.
-
In the end, the ride's over, and we never got to go up.
-
But you know that's a lot like a lot of Christians.
-
You know what he was saying,
-
"Pull the safety bar back."
-
We never did hear it.
-
But it's like that with a lot of Christians.
-
Brethren, you're being told by the apostle.
-
He's the ride operator. You're on the ride.
-
He's shouting to you:
-
"Don't grieve the Spirit."
-
"Pull into the inner circles,
-
that you might comprehend the love of Christ."
-
The vastness of it.
-
To be filled with all the fullness of God.
-
It will bring you power, folks.
-
It will help you. It will pull you through this life.
-
It will pull you through the problems.
-
Brethren, what does grieve the Holy Spirit?
-
And it comes back to this aspect of love.
-
It really does.
-
Somebody will come along and say,
-
well, the only possible thing that could grieve
-
the Holy Spirit is sin.
-
You know what I find?
-
I find even when there's sin, such as,
-
remember the prodigal son?
-
He lived in all sorts of sin.
-
And when he came back to his father,
-
his father didn't meet him with a grieved smile.
-
Remember, what grieves the Father, grieves the Son,
-
grieves the Spirit. They're all One.
-
As far as what grieves them. What grieves the Spirit
-
would be the same thing that grieves the Father.
-
But here's the picture Christ is painting for us of the Father.
-
Despite all the sin, the Father did not welcome him back
-
with a frown of grief.
-
There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repents,
-
than over 99 that need no repentance.
-
Brethren, you cannot just nail it down to the fact
-
that sin...
-
brethren, it comes back to the intimacy thing.
-
The Father's rejoicing because here comes one now,
-
a repentant sinner, that's seeking the intimacy.
-
Coming back, returning to the Father,
-
the Father throws His arms, kisses, robes, sandals,
-
fatted calf, rings on finger...
-
brethren, again, it's intimacy.
-
You want to know what grieves the Spirit?
-
Listen to this, you say, well
-
certainly not keeping His commandments.
-
Yeah, but He says, listen to how He says it.
-
Yes, that's true, but that's not all the truth of it.
-
The truth is, if you love Me, keep My commandments.
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Even there, Christ is making it an intimacy thing.
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A relational thing. He's appealing, brethren.
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If you love Me, keep My commandments.
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I'm not so much interested in people
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walking around through life who coldly
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and mechanically just try to be law keepers.
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I'm looking for people who are like these people
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in the innermost concentric cirlces; they're afraid
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they fear lest they should fall out of His love,
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out of His loving beams, out of His gaze.
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Keep yourselves in the love of God.
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The reason that they're wanting to be so meticulous
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is lest they should have any cloud come between them.
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Brethren, when that's what drives you,
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look how pleasing that is to Him.
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Brethren, He says, have you ever read
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what was said of the Ephesian church there
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in Revelation 2?
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Brethren, they were a good church. They were good.
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If you go through the list of everything that Christ says,
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positively about them, they are a tremendous church.
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But in the end, He says this,
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despite all that looks tremendous,
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despite all that may seem to the contrary,
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"You've lost your first love,
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and that I hold against you."
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Brethren, you want to know something that grieves the Spirit?
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When you begin to lose this first love.
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That in itself is grieving.
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It's grieving.
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Brethren, when you look at these things?
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Where are we?
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Where are you?
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Where have you been?
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Where have you been living?
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Brethren, if we can press in. Press in. Press upward.
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Brethren, I not only love reading about these guys
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that have this burst of love come upon them.
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But these men, these women, who lived
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year in, year out, in the blazing glory.
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Samuel Rutherford, I'll just end on this:
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Spurgeon says of him,
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"Old Samuel Rutherford used expressions sometimes so rapturous,"
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Spurgeon says, "I won't even quote them."
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And here's why. Spurgeon said,
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"Love letters are not to be read in the streets.
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And the words which souls inflamed with heavenly fire
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sometimes use towards Christ are not fit for public repetition.
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For there are passages of love, there are
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sweet embraces of affections of which we must not tell.
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For this were to commit treason such as Paul might have done
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if he had told on earth those things that He had heard in heaven.
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And which it would not be lawful for a man to utter here."
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Brethren, do you know anything of that?
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Do you know anything of such words, such exchanges
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between you and Christ that it's almost unfit for the public?
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They're there in the inner circles.
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That you might be able to comprehend with all the saints
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that you might be able to press into these inner circles
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that's what that means.
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Brethren, the power of the Spirit of God is there.
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Don't grieve Him.
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This is your life.
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This is it. Basking in the glow of Christ's love is it.
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That's what fills us with all the fullness of God.
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You can't go in further.
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There's no more further in than the innermost circles, brethren.
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Now we will get swept, unless it's just to go into Christ Himself,
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which we are in there.
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We'll just be swept off into glory forever and ever,
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just to be ravished by this love.
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Well, I'm sorry I can't - I can guarantee you
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there is a glory here to be brought out
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that I feel I fail tremendously to be able to do,
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but seek to dwell on these things.
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Go after them.
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Brethren, walk carefully.
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Strive to know nothing against yourself, nothing at all.
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Be careful.
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Don't hesitate.
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When Christ beckons you, go at once.
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When He calls you to prayer, jump.
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When He calls you to the Word, jump.
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When He calls you to fast, move, brethren.
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When He calls your name... don't be slow.
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"Here am I."
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When He puts that tinge in your conscience, don't go that way,
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brethren, don't go that way.
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When He knocks at the door, run to that door and open it.
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And may God help us.