Chapter 2
Apostolic Perception: Eternity
"Let us pray:
Precious God, the Living God, the One Who is available right now, You have given me a topic beyond any human ability to convey. We just want together to fall into Your arms in a precious "Sabbath" relaxation and let You convey Your own thoughts to these people. Not only are You the only One Who is qualified - You are the only One Who is entitled to speak of so Heavenly a thing. So speak tonight, that we might permanently be made Heavenly-minded - which is to say - apostolic - in Jesus' Name we ask. Amen.
...."Therefore, we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal".... 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 NASB
Tonight we have a formidable task and that is to speak to the subject of eternity. It is not something that I have chosen because it sounds clever. It is just simply on the Lord's program for tonight. It is something that mortal lips should not attempt to discuss, and it is a statement of the whole paradox of the Church -Christ in us, the hope of glory - Heavenly things through earthly vessels. If you think somehow that the subject is irrelevant, and "what has this to do with apostolic foundations?" - the answer is, "Everything!" This is the foundational thing, not church government and order, or various other of the practicalities of church life.
The foundation of the apostolic view is a true apprehension of the things that are eternal, not in anticipation of a future enjoyment, but of a "present appropriation", and that is what makes us peculiar. We are in time but we are beyond it - in the world, but not of it, a Heavenly people. Somehow, somewhere, in these days "eternity" must come into time, the "holy" into the profane - for that is what makes the church a glory and a witness unto God.
I pray that from tonight on you will be continually stumbling into this word (2 Corinthians 4:16- 18); somehow, though it was there, you never properly noticed it before. You thought it was just a kind of "biblical rhetoric", a certain nuance of expression, you did not think that the apostolic writers really meant it. You thought it was just a style or a flourish. You have no idea how important it is, for to lose the meaning of this word is to lose all; it is to condemn the church to being mundane and ordinary, institutional and mechanical, a weariness of the "flesh" instead of a joy and a power. We are going to have to contend for this word. I have had personally to contend for it today, almost to lock my door to keep anyone from entering - in all of the normal kinds of interruptions which happen in the world. "Do you want lunch? Do you want dinner?" Eternity needs to be "contended for" because the world is not hospitable to it. Paul not only found this eternal dimension, he dwelt in it, and yet did that condemn him to irrelevancy? On the contrary, it made him all the more relevant, and so will it make us also.
In the above portion of scripture, in three successive verses, we find three references to the word "eternal", even an "eternal weight of glory". This is beyond poetry. This is something which has become so powerfully real to Paul that it affects his present considerations. This is the man who was beaten with rods and with many strokes; left for dead; in hunger and in buffeting with no certain dwelling place, reviled, persecuted, defamed, made as the filth of the world, the offscourings of all things, even unto this day, and this is a very brief statement. Paul does not dwell on his suffering. He dismisses them as being "momentary" and "light", only on the ability of one thing, the ability to glimpse the eternal weight of glory. This is not a luxury which we can consider "having" or "not having". This is an utter apostolic requirement -for an "apostolic determination" will bring us to "apostolic suffering". The fact that we have not yet experienced it, indicates where we have been until now - exercising some lesser kind of faith that has not excited the world against us - for a truly "apostolic course" will. What is God's provision for bearing the things that must come? -"looking upon the things that are eternal", the things that are "not seen", the things that are invisible, seeing the eternal weight of glory. The issue of "seeing" is all and I know it is going to take a conscious and concerted effort to bring us to this kind of seeing. Everything presently "conspires" against it. The world wants to fill our eyes with all of its "voluptuous images". Everything is clamouring for the attention of our senses. We are continually bidden to look down upon things. It takes an apostolic determination to break that - to close out the things that are visible - to focus upon, and dwell upon, the things that are invisible and eternal. It will produce a remarkable thing in you - a "growing indifference" to the things that are of the world.
But this is a faith, a mode of life which must be contended for. We need to adjust our whole mind- set and attitude. It is not that we have not believed in eternity, but it is that we have "agreed" with the world that it does not become "relevant" until after this life. In other words, it becomes applicable when this life has ended, and so long as one has that attitude, they will not be found disagreeable or controversial to the world. If you can relegate eternity to some "future consideration" that has no present application, you are "safe". But God has called us to an "apostolic" task, to bring eternity into time. The book of revelation begins by John speaking of the things which shall shortly come to pass (Revelation 1:1). There is a certain immediacy and urgency in this kind of apostolic writing and yet it is almost two thousand years later and it is not yet happened. Was he deceived and in error? Not at all. He was writing and speaking from a mind-set that God intends characteristically to be true of saints in every generation. We need to develop a sense for the things which are "at hand", the things that are imminent and about to bring into time, the appearing of the Lord, the apocalyptic conclusion of the ages. The issue is not the issue of chronology, the issue is the issue of expectation, of apostolic mind-set, a perspective of seeing - the end result of which will be, whether we have a casual attitude and come to our meetings with an air of indifference or whether our meetings will be characterized by a spirit of urgency. I am counselling believers to steep themselves in the apostolic scriptures. We need to move and live and have our being, as it were, in them - because in them are the things which are both timeless and eternal - that spirit of urgency and utter reality and consequence. This must be the "normative atmosphere" in which we live our lives. Do we inhabit that world? The world that is presented to us in the Scriptures - is that our real world? - or is that just the world into which we slip for our Bible studies or our "sermonizing". I will tell you what will happen if you make this your effectual world. You will become "strange" and somewhat peculiar to all those who are outside of you. You are no longer excited by the things that excite them. You are somehow continually looking upward. You see things that don't occupy their attention -even those who call themselves Christians and are sincere. You become increasingly "strange" and a stranger, a pilgrim and a sojourner in the world, looking for a city not made with hands. This is not Biblical poetry. This is the normative intention of God for all true saints. This is foundational to the faith - that we see ourselves as pilgrims, always looking for something that is not in view, but our very anticipation and looking will bring it. We are expecting apocalyptic ends. And Paul says seeing these things, "what manner of men ought we to be" (2 Peter 3:11-12) "looking for and hastening the day of His appearance". I feel so inadequate in speaking this, but it must be declared to every Christian audience.
The day of the Lord's appearing is not a fixed chronological event. It does not take place of itself irrespective of our condition - it is our very condition that brings Him. We can "hasten" the day of the Lord's appearing by being what manner of men we ought to be, seeking for and hastening the day of the Lord's appearing. I am not speaking about some trifling point tonight -this is not some esoteric subject. This is utter reality. The issue of eternity is the issue of His coming and the issue of His coming by so much as one day sooner because of our apostolic preparedness (because of the expectancy which characterizes us) means that many fewer crimes of violence and destruction. For He is coming to judge the earth, and this is what I spoke of last night, Paul's speaking to the Greek philosophers and making no apology, not at all embarrassed to step from philosophy to theology in the same breath. For him it was not a matter of going from the secular to the sacred. It is all sacred - all eternal - all heavenly - all real. God has appointed a day in which He shall judge all nations by Him whom He has raised from the dead - a day of judgement and God as judge. Therefore, He has winked in times past - he now commands all men everywhere to repent. There were no apologies for introducing the subject of judgement by Paul or for Jesus or the resurrection, for it was as natural to him as breathing. It did not require an elaborate introduction. These are not just religious thoughts; they are the very foundations of all reality. Paul dwelt in this eternal dimension and brought it to bear on all of his earthly considerations because eternity is the issue of Heaven or Hell and we are going to be remarkably ill-equipped to speak of either unless the consciousness of eternity affects every waking hour. If you squint your eyes just a little, you sense the massive deception in which the whole world is lying. I see it especially in my own Jewish people - brilliantly intellectual, remarkable in the careers and professions, from atomic physics to computers, sociologists, historians, businessmen, financiers, but they are completely mindless with regards to eternity. It is a category that has no weight for them. It is a vapour - an idle thing. They are a statement of utter and ultimate deception. On Mars Hills Paul told the philosophers what the purpose of human existence is - "God has made of one blood all manner of men and He has established the bounds of their habitation, nations and governments and economies and all the complexities of life - in order that they might seek after Him - if haply they might be found of Him. How embarrassing, how simplistic, how intellectually dull - that is the whole purpose of our human existence? Surely that's all right for our "Sunday" consideration. But Paul says, "No. It is God's intention for all of our consideration. It is the very purpose for all of our being." The issue that in this lifetime we are to establish that relationship with Him that will affect all eternity. Why don't we speak with that same simplicity, that same urgency, that same absoluteness? - because we do not believe it as absolutely as he. And we do not live as if we believe it. We are simply not that occupied with the things that are eternal, and therefore we are unable to persuade men. We need to press mankind to come to terms with "eternity". The least of things they will say to us is that we are dogmatic, narrow-minded, bigoted, intolerant and yet that will be enough to intimidate many of us to silence. For what is more embarrassing and intimidating to the modern Christian than to be considered "narrow" and "dogmatic". It did not intimidate Paul! Eternity is not a narrow concept. It is an infinite and timeless as "Hell". The world needs to be disturbed by people who cannot contain themselves who are beyond the issue of taste and politeness and good manners, who burn with the reality of eternity and who take every opportunity to express the things that are divine, and bring them into the secular. This business of politeness and good taste is devilish. We need to see it as Paul would see it.
We had some discussions in America on what they call "chemical dependency". It is a euphemism for "drug addiction". Is not that just like the world, to find a nice sounding word to disguise the horror of something and to make its effect less? So a band of us from our community attended the discussion. Very polite, very rational, very secular. They talked about what kind of programs they should establish for the victims of drugs. We have become so psychological and sociological - whatever happened to sin? Two or three of our people had been through drugs and were miraculously delivered - out of prisons and out of psychiatric wards and they gave their testimony in the course of that evening and people so much as said, "well, that's nice for you. Let's now go back to our discussion." And something was beginning to well up in my spirit and at the end of the night I had to speak it. I told them that if they were unwilling to recognize what is the unseen but true foundation of all reality - namely the realm of the spirit-world, demonism and satanism - if they will not recognize this and think that they are only dealing with a "sociological phenomenon", then they seek in vain, and that they themselves are escapists, unwilling to face true reality, and thus are guilty of the very same propensity by which the young people are by taking drugs. It was a remarkable experience for us because at the very mention of God, spirit-world, demons and introducing this entire dimension -the whole room seemed to shudder. The people stiffened and recoiled, so much as to say, "How dare you!" "What bad taste, to bring your Sunday Christian concepts into a secular discussion." So unaccustomed were they to any such penetration. We have been guilty of keeping the issues of eternity to ourselves! Do we offer our views as an "opinion" or a "conviction". Do we see them as absolute life and death verities. This is the very height of offense to a world that is relativistic and pluralistic. They do not want to be told that there is anything that is absolute - an absolute, eternal alternative - but they need to be told - not by people who bring the "correct doctrine", but who come with a burning conviction. Do we really believe that God has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness? Our apostolic task is to bring an unwanted and unwelcome message to an indifferent world, but it is a message which we can only bring in the same proportion that we can demonstrate it. It is not enough to be "correct". We have to come to them, as it were, from the eternal place. You say, "But brother, how can that be? I have not yet died, that I could occupy eternity." It is very interesting if you read the Scriptures in which the references are made (Romans 5:21). Paul talks about reigning through righteousness unto eternal life. He does not mean at some future time - he means now! "He who hath the Son, hath life" - eternal life - now. "The wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23), but the free gift of God is eternal life" - NOW! It is written in Galatians 6:8:
...."He who sows to the Spirit, shall from the Spirit, reap eternal life"....
not just future -but now. Paul says to Timothy, "Fight the good fight of faith - take hold of the eternal life to which you were called", and it is evident that he is not speaking of some future time, but NOW (1 Timothy 6:12)! Hebrews 5:9 -"having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation". Somehow there is a response to righteousness - there is a response to obedience - it is a salvation that has not to do with our eternal state, but a source of salvation NOW! It is something given by the life of God - a particular kind of wisdom - an authority - He, is the source of eternal life to all those who "obey Him". It says that Jesus by the Eternal Spirit offered Himself as a living sacrifice. He did not go to the cross in a human way as a political martyr. He offered Himself by the eternal Spirit - the Spirit which is available to us - the source of His life which is both eternal and abundant. This is the record that God has given unto us - eternal life: NOT will give - but "has given". "And this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life". Maybe we can paraphrase it to say, "He who the Son has, has His life". Eternity is not just endless time - it is beyond time. It is that place of timelessness, where a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day - if you had the apostolic sight to see it. Now we are candidates tonight to be in an "eternal" moment - a certain kind of an event that God can give that transcends time. It is a particular quality of life. Jesus said, "I give unto my sheep eternal life", and when many were turning from Him He said to His disciples, "Will you also depart from me?" And they said, "Where shall we go, for you have (presently and now) the words of eternal life?" I want to encourage your faith to eternity - now. The bringing into our speaking - now, into our mind-set and perception now, those things that are eternal. You have the words of eternal life - not the words about eternity, but the words from eternity. Eternity needs to be brought into time and there is only one agency by which that can happen, it is the Church - the believing Church, the apostolic Church, that has its being, and moves and lives in the eternal dimension of "now", who abide in Him - the High and lofty One, Who inhabits eternity. "Whosoever believes on Him, shall have eternal life", not just future, but now. It is a very peculiar state of being. It is something like coming out of your seat to stand before an audience tonight, knowing that God has appointed a subject that cannot be addressed in any kind of academic or scholastic or mechanical way. It is knowing that it is a call for something which is beyond "human". It is believing "into" Him to have eternal life "now"; to be in that dimension which is concurrent with time, and indeed it is a dimension that needs to be contended for, if you will enter into life. Contend for the faith that was once given to the saints as more than just an injunction to embrace their doctrines. It is an invitation to come into a certain dimension of being. It is not going to make you ethereal and irrelevant. You are not going to become "dreamy" and "visionary", for if eternity is anything - it is the very essence of that which is "real". And it makes that which is visible and temporal to become "less substantial".
A certain rich young ruler came to Jesus and wanted to know how he could obtain "eternal life". Jesus said, "Keep the commandments". He did not mean by that, "Your reward will be eternal life". But at the very keeping of the commandments and that very obedience unto righteousness, the eternal life is given. "If thou wilt be perfect", Jesus said, "if thou wilt enter into the Kingdom", are all responses to the man who said, "How may I obtain eternal life?" It is the issue of perfection in God. It is the issue of a Kingdom come "now in the earth" as it is in Heaven, it is the issue of obeying God's commands. Satan has been enjoying a holiday over the church for centuries. He has allowed us to fall into a sleep by which we have dismissed, or relegated eternity to some future time and it has robbed the church of its urgency and or its expectancy. We need to taste the power now of the ages to come.
Are we able to tell men that God has appointed a day in which He will judge all nations; it is the day of the Lord - a fearful day! Who has the sense of this imminent judgement which is at the door? Who can speak it without fear of men? Only that one who fears God and senses Him already as "present" as the God who is Judge. Our problem is that we secretly covet the world's admiration. We want to succeed on the world's terms, if not academically, then theologically. We find ways to be polite and to address our Christian convictions in ways in which the world can receive them. We have lost the apostolic view. We need to confront the world in its entire framework of thought, for the "whole" of non-Christian thought is a lie, and it has not reckoned on "eternity". It has not brought the "invisible thing" into it's consideration and therefore all of its other considerations are awry. The world needs to be confronted by the things that are eternal; confronted in love as Paul himself confronted the Greeks. But there is no assurance that if you go up that kind of mountain that you will come down - for you are striking at the very heart of the world and its lies. Men might stop their ears and rush upon you and gnash their teeth. Are we anxious to preach Christ and Him crucified, Him risen, the soon coming King and judge? We cannot divide these things for they are indivisible, a seamless garment. Can you understand now better why Paul said, "I am determined not to know anything but Christ and Him crucified." It takes a determination! Everything in the world and the flesh, and the Devil, conspires against it. It wants to diminish this truth. It wants to put it in the category of that which is just "religious" - "the doctrines that Christians choose to believe". We are enjoined to preach this Gospel to every creature. "Go ye into all the world and preach this Gospel". God has appointed a day in which He will judge all nations by that One Whom He has raised from the dead." And I am just noticing how it is expressed in Acts 17:31:
...."He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a man who, He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men, by raising Him from the dead"....
I thought to myself as I read this earlier, "How has He furnished proof to all men? These pagan Greeks were nowhere near Jerusalem and the events that had to do with the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. How has He furnished proof to all men - by setting a Paul before them, who not only proclaims the doctrine of resurrection and judgement, but is himself a "demonstration" of the resurrection life, a taste of the power of the ages to come. The issue of resurrection is already the issue of eternity - it is the life to come. And when a man stands before unbelieving Greeks and speaks to them penetratingly out of that life, God has furnished "proof" to those men. There is something wanting in us, and it is an entry into the eternal dimension through the reality of resurrection life, given to them that obey Him. It is not enough to approve the doctrine. We need to live and move and have our being in Jesus Christ, or our words about an imminent judgement are without value. There can be no full speaking or preaching of the resurrection or of eternal judgement unless the entire framework of our life and our challenge is changed. Do we really want to see all men everywhere repent? Because as they see the eternity that is already in us they shall be eternally condemned except that they receive Him in whose name we come. We are moving to a final and ultimate confrontation with the philosophical spirit of the world and it is not a place for politeness or relevance. Something raw, something timeless and something eternal must be presented to men. It is the very essence of that which is apostolic, a church that has laid hold of that which is eternal, not just awaiting some future state, but already appropriating it, and bringing it into their present consideration. The issue of resurrection in us is the issue of eternity for them. God is desirous of an apostolic mind-set, for these are the foundations of the Church, not the issues of mechanics or church government, however important that might be in itself. A church without the eternal dimension, however correct it may be in every other form, is not an apostolic church. This is the position far beyond correct doctrine. Something must come again into the atmosphere of God's corporate people, a sense of urgency that we ourselves cannot calculate or establish. We must be purveyors of a sense of imminence and of the things that shall shortly come to pass, the eternal sense of things, the eternal stakes of Heaven or Hell by a people who know them, who already have sensed the eternal weight of glory which is so presently real to them now that the rejection that comes to them, the abuse that comes to them, the reproach that comes to them, the persecution that comes to them for the bearing of an unwelcome word that the world does not want to hear is, for them, only a momentary and light affliction for they see only that which is "invisible" and all that they experience is weighed in light of the eternal weight of glory. Look up! Look up! God wants us to see all things "apostolically" - God desires to restore the very foundation of the Church, the eternal view. I want to pray for that tonight. There is a mystery in these speakings - This is not instructional. This is not a matter of teaching - it is a word whose time has come, the very speaking of, which brings it, something which needs to be profoundly restored to save us from being fixed in time, fixed in our culture, fixed in our secular categories, to break through into a different dimension where reality truly is, eternity now!
Let us pray:
Heavenly Father, I call upon you in Jesus Name and I ask Your mercy. Look upon us Lord. You know us, everyone. We are utterly transparent in Your sight. You know how much our mind-set and our thoughts have been affected by the world. Something has been stolen from us or we have never known it. I ask you to lift the veil tonight and to usher in a dimension of Your glory to birth it into our very being that it might well up unto consciousness and save us from the fears and intimidations of this present world and change all our seeing as we anticipate that which is soon to come. Let it come now! - the sense of that which is eternal, beyond time, glorious, a whole mode and dimension of being as relevant now as it was two thousand years ago and it will be throughout all time, world without end, throughout all ages - eternity. Lord breath the essence of Your eternal Spirit into us. May our eyes blink as it comes in. May we emit a slight gasp as this intangible thing comes into our consciousness. May it grow and abound. May it become passionate and burning so that everything else is eclipsed - our fears, our concerns, our anxieties, they are momentary and light as we see what is invisible and therefore eternally true - the greater weight of glory. My God, change us and lay this foundation in our corporate spirit and life that we might be an apostolic presence in the earth beyond both time and culture, and therefore a challenge to those who are blind and indifferent and who would otherwise perish eternally. Give us such a sense of Heaven that we can burn for the fear of Hell and persuade men before the soon coming day of Jesus' appearing and the day of judgement which shall shortly come to pass. May we live as if we believe it, in Jesus' Name. Amen.
Have you seen the "greater thing"? You must see it or you will never be able to give yourselves wholly to it! For God has not called you to be "functionaries" in an institutional church, meeting the needs of men, receiving "safe" salaries. He has called you to be "messengers", ascending and descending in the "ladder" to Heaven upon the Son of Man. Have you seen the greater thing and fallen before it? Have you wakened from your sleep? For God is in this place and no other. May these truths be established over the face of the earth by apostolic men and women who are jealous for His glory and who will not consider any alternative to God's "absolute standard" - not only for this age but for the ages to come. This calling is more than a few dollars in a collection plate. It will require "all" of our lives, "all" our being, and it is for this reason that we are called - to be saved out of our sins, yet into His purposes. Amen.