Address—A.C. Hayhoe
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All right.
The singing of that hymn.
Suggested to me a very precious truth that I know is familiar, well known, and often referred to, but surely, like all the rest of the Word of God, that which we have heard so often rings with a freshness to our hearts, or it ought to.
00:05:15
Could we turn please to 1St John chapter 4?
First John, chapter 4.
Verse 17.
Herein is our love made perfect.
That we may have boldness in the day of Judgment because.
Because as he is.
So are we in this world?
Those wonderful words at the close of that verse just mine words as he is.
So are we in this world? Isn't that something wonderful? It ought to fill our hearts not only with confidence, but with gladness, with Thanksgiving.
As He is when our blessed Lord Jesus was here on earth.
He had before him in a reality that neither you nor I can ever comprehend, he had before him.
Death and judgment, isn't that solemn? You and I perhaps are accustomed to.
The element of death but that which it meant to the Lord Jesus was more than it had ever meant to any man of Adam's race.
Death and judgment were before the Lord Jesus while He was here on earth.
But he went into the very power of death. He bowed his head beneath those out poor judgments.
That he cried aloud and glorious triumph. It is finished. And as we have been reminded, His body dead was taken down and buried. But beloved, He is risen from among the dead. And you and I have heard it said, and I love the sound of it, that the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ was God's Amen.
To his cry, it is finished. He cried, it is finished.
God heard that cry, and in triumph he raised him from among the dead. And now, beloved, we were reminded again the other day.
He arose, and with his disciples gathered round about him, He was taken up from them, and a cloud received him out of their sight.
Now, I suppose it's only right and proper when we come to a statement like that, that we should ask no questions, and perhaps perhaps not even.
Imagine.
But a cloud received him out of their sight. Am I forgiven for imagining what took place on the other side of that cloud?
God's well beloved Son, obedient unto death, was welcomed home.
Welcome home. No wonder a cloud received him. No wonder no human eye was able to observe that welcome. God welcomed his son home again.
Will there ever be another welcome like that? Yes, there will. Yes there will. When you, when I when we are welcomed home, we will be welcomed in all the glad, nearness and love of the beloved Son of God, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Now the Lord Jesus up there.
In God's presence, seated at God's right hand.
Is forever beyond the power of death and judgment. And we are told in these nine simple, precious words, as he is, so are we in this world. Can you and I really take it in? I know I can't. But I can read it and I know it's true. And in the little measure in which my poor heart can grasp it.
00:10:08
I bow and Thanksgiving.
Beloved, can the enemy whisper anything that could make my heart to tremble as to acceptance?
As he is death and judgment forever behind him, so are we. It's not something we're looking forward to. It's something that is even now, our portion to enjoy. So are we in this world today?
Now, and in whatever little time may yet be entrusted to us, you and I can take this verse with all the confidence that is intended.
And thank him for it. But I remember hearing a brother say at a Saint Louis conference a good many years ago, he said, I believe that in a past eternity, when God looked at his beloved son, so immeasurable was that love.
That God would say, when I have a family, I want them.
All to be just like my son. And God's desire is going to be realized. God is going to have a family, a family of individual believers, each one with their eternal individuality, and yet each one like his own beloved son. The third chapter of this same epistle.
And the second verse.
First John 3, verse two. Beloved now, are we the sons of God?
Now, yes, right now, that's not news to anyone here. You've known it, you have enjoyed it. But you know, we might just ask ourselves, in what manner does one become a son in a family?
While you say there are two ways one could be born into a family or one could be adopted into a family, isn't that right? And in each case the relationship would exist. And I suggest too that in each case there is a particular advantage.
The son born into the family could look at his father and say I possess the very life and nature of my father, but he could not look at his father and say that man chose me and wanted me. He couldn't do that.
As son adopted into a family could look at his father and say.
My Father chose me and wanted me, but he could not say that I possessed the life and nature of my father. In which manner did you or I become sons of God? Both, beloved, both.
Were his by eternal choice where his by adoption, where his by birth and we can look up this afternoon and say.
I am of the very household of God by choice and by birth. Is it really possible to say He chose me, He wanted me and I have been born into His family?
Now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be.
But we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, or we shall see Him as He is. Are you, am I looking forward to this moment, beloved? Oh, is it a reality with our hearts as we think of the return of our Lord Jesus Christ that we're actually going to see Him? And when we do that, we're going to find that.
Delight in seeing us and making us welcome. Well, absolutely melt these hearts of ours. When you see him, He is going to identify you and welcome you personally. Home. No father ever walks into a home after a period of absence.
With his wife and family gathered there and greets them a little family. No indeed, he greets them with an individual loving personal joy and gladness.
I know that when we reach home, the body of Christ, yes, the bride of Christ, yes, the Church of God, true, and yet individual sons and daughters, beloved and chosen and born into the very family of God to be welcomed home.
00:15:18
It does not yet appear what we shall be.
This, to me, is rather searching. On the one hand, I doubt not that it refers to that physical conformity that yet awaits the believer. We're going to be like him physically. And that certainly doesn't appear right now. The years take their toll. We look like any other fallen son of Adam. Or do we?
I think there should be a difference.
And I know I've seen a difference.
You know, I understand that years ago.
When Abraham Lincoln was selecting.
Candidates for certain high office. Someone was recommended to him and he promptly dismissed the recommendation with a very strange comment. He said no, I don't like that man's face.
Well, the man who had made the suggestion was amazed that the president's answer. He said, you don't like his face, Mr. President, The man is not responsible for his face. And the president is supposed to have answered. Every man over 40 is responsible for his face. I don't know why he said over 40, but I believe I know what the president probably meant. And I look out here into the faces of my beloved brethren and sisters.
Tell you, brethren.
There is a difference in looking into your faces and looking into the faces of those who do not know the Lord Jesus as Savior. Oh, it's true that someday that name is going to be in every forehead. There will be nothing but the reflection of perfect, unmarred reflection of the Lord Jesus Christ forever.
From you and me, when I look at you, when you look at me.
All at which Mars, that reflection today will be gone forever. His name in their forehead. Oh what a delight that will be. And beloved, when we look at one another to day, can we not at least look for that reflection? I don't have to look hard right now, brethren, to see it. I truly say that as I look into your faces, I see that which I know I would not see if I were faced with a similar company of those who know not.
Savior. But it's true. It does not yet appear.
The years have taken their toll with everyone of us.
But we know, isn't this glorious, and isn't it characteristic of that which is ours? We know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him.
As he is.
Isn't that a marvelous thing?
I was visiting in Cleveland not long ago with a dear young man 19 years of age.
Paralyzed for life from the chest down, he can move it, move his arms, but barely move his fingers.
All the way to the hospital to visit him, I was asking the Lord for something that might be given to comfort the heart of a 19 year old that finds himself through an accident, paralyzed. For life has to be turned over every two hours, day and night.
And when I got there, I found him rejoicing. He said, Oh brother, when I find myself at home with the Lord Jesus, I have a million things to thank him for, and one of them will be my new body. You and I perhaps don't think of that very often until the Lord, in his wisdom and faithfulness, reminds us that we're not home yet.
And there are some here that are longing, perhaps a bit more eagerly than others.
For that new and glorified body. But the next verse, beloved, adds a thought that I think we should well bear in mind. And every man that hath this hope in him purifies himself even as he is pure.
00:20:04
I believe that in Philippians 3, which was just read to us, we have specifically physical conformity to our Lord Jesus Christ who shall change our body of humiliation, that it may be fashioned like in his own body of glory, His own body of glory. We're going to be like him physically and in this we do rejoice.
But here the emphasis of the third verse.
Makes me feel that in verse two there is moral conformity to our Lord Jesus Christ.
We're going to be like him physically. We're going to be like him morally. And in verse three it says every man that has this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure. I believe the suggestion is this.
No amount of occupation with future physical conformity is going to have any effect upon the advance of age. I'm going to continue. If the Lord looks, leave me here to look even older than I do today, I suppose. But the prospect of moral conformity to our Lord Jesus Christ, what would it do if it really laid hold of our hearts?
If I looked up this day and knew.
That in a moment, and very soon I was going to be morally conformed to the one who displayed that beauty while he was here on earth, the one who now occupies that place of enthronement and glory above. I'm going to be like him. You're going to be like him. And I believe that in the measure in which this touches and.
And occupies our hearts. There will be seen a moral conformity to him.
In our ways, and that, I believe can be recognized.
By others, Oh dear Saints of God, like thee, O Lord, how wondrous, fair, true. By God's matchless grace as He is, so are we in this world, and we rejoice in this. It is a reality.
Is there, is there a danger, beloved, that we take some of these things as facts that we've heard about in the Word of God and we kind of file them away in our minds, and when we hear them again, we nod our heads yes, I've heard that one and I agree with it. Or are they precious revelations of His loving heart that touch and stir our affections and affect our whole life?
As he is.
So are we in this world?
And we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
Let us remember, beloved, the force of that verse, that we should be ready to give an answer to every man, ask a reason of the hope that is within us. That verse has always searched my heart and I think it should be an increasing challenge as we find ourselves surrounded by circumstances that are causing the hearts of so many to fail for fear they look around at that which they considered to be.
Stable and so reliable, and they're finding things crumbling that they thought would stand.
And what about you? And what about me? When did anyone last ask you or ask me a reason of the hope within us?
And why ever would they ask us such a question? Is it not the normal order that we should be telling them of this or that That's our privilege? But I consider it to be a greater challenge and a higher privilege. So to act that any would ever ask, ask a reason of the hope. Why would they do this? Because they have seen in you.
Seen in you.
Our hope that they recognize, and they want to know the basis of that hope. Oh beloved, I just quote those two verses again. As He is, so are we in this world, and it does not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is and every man that has this hope in him.
00:25:13
Purified himself.
Even as he is pure.
Our brother was speaking about the.
The cloud that received the Lord out of the sight of those that remain. And I'd just like to go on with a few thoughts on the cloud as we find in numbers.