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285.
Verse 2 Thou glorious light of courts above, joy of the Saints below, to us still manifest thy love, that we its depths may know.
Jesus.
Thy hand was.
From.
Is.
From.
Android.
Love my heart.
Holy man, God.
'S son with a Lord, I hope.
Sorry.
Be together.
I know we're not done with the chapter yet, but if we could use this meeting to go back to the first chapter and meditate on the glories of the Lord Jesus in chapter one.
From verse 13 down to 99. Just make that a suggestion.
That is not.
Thought, well, why? I'm glad to go back to the other two so.
What did my brethren say?
We've had such focus on the person of the Lord Jesus at him, thou glorious light of courts above.
I don't know, I just suggest that.
Amen.
Brother.
Perhaps verse 13 down through 19. Is that all right?
Colossians chapter one. We'll start at verse 13.
Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the Kingdom of His dear Son?
In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins. Who is the image of the invisible God, the first born of every creature. For by Him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether they be Thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created by Him and for Him, and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.
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And he is the head of the Body, the Church, who is the beginning, the first born from the dead.
And in all things he might have the preeminence.
For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell.
There's three places in the New Testament where the.
Glories of the person of our Lord Jesus are particularly focused on.
1St chapter of John. The 1St chapter of Colossians. The 1St chapter of Hebrews.
And each in a little different focus, but I find it.
And rapturing to the heart to just be occupied with something of his glory. When he came into this world, He veiled that glory. And so when they saw him, they said we know him. He's the Carpenter.
That human form that he took was the veil.
So that they didn't recognize who he really was.
Sometimes the glory shone through that human veil. When he was on the ship, and he calmed the winds and the waves, His disciples said, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?
Something of his Creator glory shone through that human veil.
And of course we know that at the transfiguration.
His face shone as the sun, and his garments were white as the light.
Then when they came to take him at.
The end.
He goes forth to meet them, and says, Whom seek you? And they say, Jesus of Nazareth.
He says I am and they go backward to the ground.
Certainly must have been something of his Godhead glory that shone through that human veil.
But oh brethren, we don't grasp.
The immensity of the glory. So in this portion, I suggest that we have the.
Title first born used twice.
In verse 15.
Also in verse 18.
So he that first born is not a matter of being born, because David was called the first born of the kings of the earth in Psalm 89.
It's as tie the love preeminence.
And so there's two spheres.
In this chapter in which the Lord Jesus is the preeminent one. So the first part is from verse 1516, seventeen and then.
That's that's the first creation.
And then from verse 18 and 19, he.
Is the first born from the dead the one who has preeminence in new creation, because new creation begins with Christ in resurrection?
So I just suggest that as kind of an outline of these verses, I have found it so thrilling just to meditate on His glory.
In that 12Th verse.
Giving thanks.
Unto the Father.
Remember 1.
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All evening October, I believe.
I drive to Montreal.
And the sun was setting.
And I don't remember seeing.
Such beautiful skies.
It was like coals and fire.
The sun was setting.
And it looked like coals of fire.
And it moved me to consider.
The setting of the sun as a wind.
And I caused a fire. This creation bears witness in how God has made it to to him.
To the Lord Jesus. So he has translated as the Father has translated us into the Kingdom, and I think Mr. Darby translated and the Kingdom of the Son of his love.
This is the relationship that we have with the father has his children. So if my wife had been with me, I was allowed in the car. If my kids had been with me, if anybody had been, I would have said look at that, look at that sunset. Never saw anything so beautiful.
And I think the Father says to us, look, look at that sunset. Have you ever seen anything so beautiful, so glorious?
He's translated us, transported us into the Kingdom of the Son, of His love, to enjoy in a small measure what He is to the Father and share with him that enjoyment and fellowship, that delight he's found in Him. He would say that isn't he glorious and beautiful? Say, he sure is, Father, He sure is.
Verse 15 he says first of all he is the image.
Of the invisible God.
When God made man, He made him in his.
Image and likeness.
But here the Lord Jesus is called the image of the.
Invisible God, because God necessarily in the grander and the greatness and the Infinity of his person.
It's impossible for creatures to be able to grasp it.
And so God became a man in the person of the Lord Jesus.
And now we can say that the image is the visible representation.
Of that which is infinite.
Amazing wonder. And that's why I think in Matthew's Gospel.
The morning. Read that the other day.
And where it says the father.
Knoweth the Son. They had better rate it because it is interesting. Matthew 11.
And verse 27 he says, All things are delivered unto me of my father.
And no man N the sun.
But the father?
Neither N any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.
So that the person of the father is revealed by the son.
It doesn't say that the person of the Son is revealed. It's a mystery, brethren, that God in all His fullness could be represented in a human body.
In the person of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It's something that just fills the soul and what with wonder to think of it, but the Lord Jesus is the visible.
Representation of that which is infinite and eternal.
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Could be Colossians 2 and 9 is that?
For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
Timothy, Chapter 6.
A very striking passage, it seems to me. Pick it up from verse 15.
The blessed and only Potentate first Kings. 615 The King of kings and Lord of Lords, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach, unto whom no man hath seen nor can see, To whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen.
The essential.
Glory of glories where God has always dwelled, man could never approach to.
But God has been pleased to come out of that place in the person of His Son.
And John exalts in this in John chapter one and in passages like this.
And to think that in that coming out as the Lord Jesus could say, I came out from God and nothing was left behind of God had glory, we could say because God was able to include if, if I could put it this way, it's holy ground.
Everything as we as our brother read in verse 9, all the fullness of the Godhead.
Dwelt bodily in him. I can remember as a young fresh Christian reading this for the first time, I had just put the Bible back down on the tape.
Nothing left out. The greatest artist in the world seeks to express himself in some painting or in some sculpture.
And the greatest that has ever lived, Leonardo, whoever it is, Rembrandt couldn't really express everything in a little human heart, But God has been able to express all that he is in the person of his Son, and he's come out to us that we might behold his Lord.
Thinking of the thought that here is the glorious one. But it begins by telling us that He deliver us. He came to deliver us from the power of darkness. That makes it even more amazing, isn't it? This world was under the authority of that darkness, and now light, the full exhibition of light, came to deliver us from that.
Sometimes in my work we get involved in transit systems and cities and to rebuild them or whatever, and you'll go to the city. We're not really familiar with it. We look at a map, we go to the full, the very first stop. Sometimes it's out in a very rough part of town. We get on the very, very beginning and we ride it all the way to the end.
And that's what God has done for you and me. We got on in the dark, dark place. We couldn't have been lower.
The Lord Jesus was with the wild beasts, and they never laid a paw on him.
He walks among men who were the delight of God in the original creation. We know what happened.
We were in darkness and under the power of darkness, but he's taken us to the last stop.
Because what else more could He have done than assign us a place with His Son as we were speaking the other night, We stand accepted in the place, and none but Christ could claim.
Problems. Sometimes we have as many. We don't recognize the majestic power of our Lord. We need to be told. We need to be manifest. I was thinking of the loop in Luke's Gospel when the demon call himself the Legion. Actually, let's turn to that. I can't hold it right. Luke's Gospel, chapter 8.
In verse 27 there we came into this man and who would dwell in tombs. In verse 28, just read that. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him, and with a loud voice said, What have I to do with thee Jesus?
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Thou son of God, Most High, I beseech thee.
Torment me not. These are the devil who sees Jesus coming in, perhaps for the first time in this place. They recognize who he is without introduction. They know. And if you notice, they didn't just say Jesus go away from us. Look at the title. Look at what they recognized that Jesus.
Thou son of God, the devil believe, and they tremble because they know who he is.
And not just the Son of God, they even acknowledge that the Son of God.
Most High, and they also know the place they ought to be. Why torment us? Thou? They even beg Him and the following verses not to send them into that bottomless pitch, at least not for now. So the these unseen world recognize the power of our Lord, but we as men often forget.
Chapter tells us that he is the one who created.
Those invisible beings, whether angels or archangels, and the fallen ones too, He is the creator of all things.
You're occupied with visible things mainly, aren't we? In this light? It seems like there's so much occupation with that which is visible, and there's no way to avoid it but to realize that there is a world that is invisible, the spirit world. And so he created not only that which is in heaven and in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be Thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.
All things were created by him and for him.
Incredible power when we consider the vastness of the visible universe.
They say they can see out approximately about 13 billion light years.
But what is billions of years to God means nothing, because God inhabits eternity.
So it's the vastness of it and I, I don't think frankly rather than that.
There will ever be any get into the end of the visible universe as far as man's concerned.
I do believe there is an end to it because of the fact that that's the way we know creation. It's measurable and so there is an end. But where is that end? I don't think man will get to it because it's part of the revelation of the greatness of our God. How great is He?
Beyond.
Our ability to grasp.
Can I use a corrected word, brother? And taking the occasion, I'm going to say something brother about Tony, you said incredible power.
No. We think it's credible power. We believe. Thank you. We believe that. Don't we believe that? I can't measure it. It's unfathomable beyond my capacity to lay hold of it, but I believe it.
I'm sure you wouldn't mind that brother. Thank you.
Thank the Lord too. We believe not because we're smarter than the rest. He even have to give us the light to understand and believing. So I was just thinking as you're quoting this billions of years away. Well man, what are the thought is well, perhaps we can find a place out there knowing this world was coming to this end that we can escape to it. But in reality, even their own thinking is fraud because first of all, if it's so many light years away, well #1.
Man without body, the physics tells us that nothing with a mask and travel at the speed of light, so you can't get there if it's a billion years away. And even if you could have traveled at the speed of life, well our lifespan wouldn't last that long. So really all this discovery is a fraud that man wants to justify that we can do things ourselves and leave God out of the picture.
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You look at creation and.
What holds the atoms together and then the nucleus of the atom that, that power, that atomic power, they, they kind of have that. What's holding all that together? What are, what are there's physical laws, you know, but it says here that all things by him subsist. He made the things and he's holding it. It's by him. When he decides that it's over, it's going to disappear. He's not going to hold it together.
Anymore faith goes beyond science, and what it reaches is God and his power. And God says this is true. My son, the humble Jesus who hung on the cross, in whose face we spit, He's the one that's holding the universe together by the word of his power.
Look at that first expression again. Who is the image of the invisible God? That we've had these contemplations of his immense power, his glory, and yet.
In John's gospel when he performs his first miracle.
And he manifests his glory.
He goes to a wedding and they run out of wine and he provides.
Wine for that wedding.
And it says He this was his first miracle, and he manifested his glory. What kind of glory is that?
Well, what it tells me here was here was God manifest on the earth, and he cared about this little detail of the wine at a wedding.
And he thought it was glorious to intervene in a little tiny circumstance in a little tiny village.
The marriage.
And you know what it tells me who's interested in the little details of your life.
It's somebody that loves you.
You know, that's the glory that he manifested here.
Not only in the greatness of the universe, but in the minuteness of detail that he's interested in.
And I often think.
Of him standing there.
In the counsel of the Jews.
And.
One place it says that when the chief priest comes up and spits in his face.
I can't think of a more dehumanizing act towards another human being.
What is the reaction?
No reaction.
Oh, brother.
This is our God.
The meekness.
Beautiful.
It's so much greater than our smallness, isn't he?
There's two aspects here 2 That are important, I think, for our souls. One is fitness and the other's capacity. The apostle is giving thanks here as he presents the glory of the Son of God's love to us, that first of all the Saints were made fit.
To participate in and to be able to share in the glory that's being revealed in the person, that's a wonderful aspect to us, that there's glory.
But there are many who will never see it.
And never enjoy it, because you have to be made fit in order to be brought into the Kingdom of the Son of His love, where that glory can be enjoyed and seen. And so, brethren, we give thanks to God this morning that we have been made fit to be able to enter into that sphere of things where we can behold the glory.
The second is capacity.
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God.
Didn't make known this glory to the ants or the fish.
It says in Psalm 19 that He created mankind to be able to see some of the glory. We've been hearing about. The immensity and the greatness of the universe and mankind in general is so made that He can see that glory of God and recognize that it had a Creator.
And appreciate and measure that glory, even whether he's a believer or not. Albert Einstein, for example, one of the most well known.
Scientists. Philosophers.
Saw the glory, and God had given him the capacity that he recognized and acknowledged.
There must be a creator.
As he saw the visible display of glory, God has created angels. Angels have the capacity to see something of the glory of their Creator.
But they don't have the capacity that you and I have.
They don't have the capacity to actually sit and enjoy the revelation of the greatness of the person.
Why first of all?
They don't. They were not created with that capacity.
They don't have the relationship of redemption that brings them into out of the darkness, into the greatness of the light. Yesterday we talked a lot about the life.
That we have. What is it? It's the life of Christ. What does that do for us? It gives us the capacity to enjoy the glory in a way that no other creature can. A man that's not saved can't do it. He doesn't have the capacity for it. He's not fit to see it in the 1St place, to be in the presence of it. You can see the glory of creation, but he can't see the full glory of the person.
That is the son of God's love and the relationship of that son to his Father that we have been brought into the enjoyment of that and Paul's prayer here is at where is and what he's bringing out is I thank God that he's done that for us and brought us into this place in which we enjoy as having the life of Christ.
And Christ in us that this very person in all his glory is brought into such an intimate connection with us that we are enabled of God to appreciate it, to enjoy it, and to be found in the wonder of it. It's been said rightly, we don't understand it. Will that in that one aspect we do not. And it's the aspect that we always remain creatures.
So we're always finite.
He is infinite in His person and we can never grasp that. We can never lay hold of the fullness of the Infinity of His person and the Infinity of His love and so on. But God has said, no, you can't.
But I'm going to take what you are and the capacity of the vessel that I have made you to be, and I'm going to fill you full with himself and my love, and you'll just overflow and worship and pray. And that's what we are, those vessels that have been filled to the fullness of the capacity to enjoy himself, to produce in us eternal worshippers and praise of himself.
Part of the invisible creation is the angelic creation, and it's an interesting thing to look through the scriptures as to what it says. He makes his angels spirits, so they are spirit beings.
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And they are of a higher order than the human creation, because when the Lord Jesus became a man, he was made a little lower than the angels.
Somebody has said he passed up Angels twice.
He passed angels on his word descent to becoming a man.
And then?
In glory as a man.
He goes far above, and angels and all things are.
Subjected to him as a man. Amazing to think there's a man, a human being in the glory of God today that is at the pinnacle of all power and authority, and we are associated with him. But it's interesting in these portions.
And the part that is connected with our association with Him is from verse 18 and 19, where it speaks of him as the head of the body, the church who is the beginning, the first born of from the dead, because there could be no union with Him until redemption was accomplished. And so here in this second sphere that it's speaking about, that he is the first born.
In verse 18.
It's in resurrection because.
New creation begins with the Lord Jesus in resurrection.
And as such, He is the head of a new creation, and there is union with us who are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. Wonderful.
Weekend before the work of redemption was accomplished, there were those who knew God, who had fellowship with God in the Old Testament. Amazing how much they did know Job and.
David and Abraham and so many others and Moses who actually saw the glory of God from behind. But it was only to a certain point. But rather than to think that now we are brought into union with this glorious person only in resurrection, and so he is the head of the body, the Church.
Who is the beginning? Now that's the beginning of new creation. If you look at Revelation chapter 3, you have that same expression, and I think it relates to what we have here. When he's talking to the Church of the Laodiceans. He says this in verse 14 of Revelation 3. These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness.
This part the beginning of the creation of God. If any man be in Christ, there is a new creation. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new, and all things are of God. In new creation, everything is of God. Brethren, we are still connected to this first creation, but by new birth we've been brought into new creation.
Wonderful truth, brethren, to enjoy.
Was thinking of those expression there delivered us from the power of darkness.
And he mentions in the 16th verse.
Drones, dominions, principalities and powers.
When he made them, there was no darkness, but there was rebellion, wasn't there? And.
When you read in Ephesians chapter 6.
Verse 12. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
For description there of these invisible powers, you might say that we've been delivered from.
I've enjoyed that David. He slew Goliath. Parallel that with Lord's victory over Satan at the cross.
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But then four of David's servants.
They slew four sons of the giant.
And so these are the enemies that we face. And so in Ephesians chapter 6, it says that finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.
His power and might is way above that of spiritual wickedness and darkness in high places. So we put on the armor of God provided for us. All things are new, all of God.
They're bulletproof. If I could use the expression, you know.
So I just thought of that in connection with those four elements now, powers of darkness, that God has given us the resources from Himself to withstand these and to be victorious like our Lord was victorious on the cross.
How important it is to recognize that there is this invisible world and the what you are mentioning there in Ephesians six of the need of having on the armor of God. Brethren, in these last days. It does seem to me that the spiritual warfare is quite intense here in this country. It's interesting somebody has pointed out years ago to me and I found it very interesting that.
In the book of Daniel, you find Daniel praying in Chapter 9.
And in chapter 10, in Chapter 9, he gets his prayer answered immediately that man Gabriel came, which was an Angel, really came and gave him the answer to his prayer.
Chapter 10.
There's a delay of three weeks.
And when the answer does come, the messenger says the reason I was delayed was because I was with the Prince of Persia. And now that I'm going to return, I'm going to go to the Prince of Greece. Was the time when the Persian Empire was changing to the Grecian Empire?
And if we would realize, brethren, the intensity and the reality of the spiritual warfare that goes on in government circles, it certainly becomes us to be praying for those in authority.
You know, sometimes in our prayer meetings barely hear a reference to.
Those in authority, we need to pray for him, brethren. This is part, very real, part of the creation that we are part of.
Verse 17 it says He is before all things and.
Via him, all things consist or subsist.
It's bringing before us something of the glory of the person that we're enjoying. His person and His glory is the Son of God's love.
Telling us that before there was anything any of this, we've been talking about the creation and the immensity of it and the beauty of it and the glory of it and so on. Before any of that existed, He was.
In this person that brings glory and majesty. When we think of it, here's one that was before any created thing existed. He was not created. He was the Son of God from all eternity. It is person, and so it's brought before us. He's before all things.
But then the next statement is wonderful as well.
By him all things obsessed.
We can talk about what was before time, even though we can't understand it really, because we're creatures of time, but we can talk about it anyways.
But what about today? What about this morning? I think it's in Job. The question is raised well. What happens if God just took his eye off the world for a moment?
That would be the end of the world.
God, by his power it isn't. A man, studies all the laws of nature and all the rest of it, and that's as far as he can go. But what sustains the law of nature?
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Why do those laws continue to exist? Why are they what they are?
It's because the Creator God creates the not only created them, but sustains them moment by moment. And that's the person of the Creator and the Son of His love. By Him we're all things created and by Him.
We bless the glory of His person that this morning He's keeping the sun up there working.
He's providing the natural laws, as man calls them. He's keeping him operating moment by moment. And so that's the immensity of his present work according to his glory. But I'd also like to make a comment on the matter of the powers of evil and the unseen powers that work today in connection with the glory of his person, and that's this.
As long as there's sin, there's going to be conflict. As long as they exist, the flesh, the world and the devil in a place of sin, there's going to be conflict involved in it. And we tend to perhaps worry some about what's going to happen tomorrow or the next day. We have responsibility, as is mentioned, pray for the powers that be we were told to put to death and put into the state of death and live daily.
In the subsequent exhortation out the life, but.
Can't we sit here and not worry?
Well, the end of this later in this very first chapter, with respect to all those things, verse 27 says the end of the verse, Christ in you, the hope of glory. What's that say?
Says your destiny is as sure as the glory of this person.
Is there any question mark that Satan will have the last word? The world will have the last word, your flesh will have the last word that will keep you from the destiny of glory and from sitting down with the Father at His table to have the person of this glorious Christ before your heart forever to start a feast that has no end.
Can it happen?
Well, only if this Christ who's in you fails.
That's impossible, can't even think about it. And your destiny and mine is as sure as the greatness of the person that we're enjoying this morning. Praise the Lord, Amen.
David.
When he slew Goliath.
It's interesting it almost the language almost seems like he kills him twice.
Because he hits him with a stone in his foot, and he falls to the earth, and it says David slew him.
But then he goes up. He takes Goliath's own sword through death. He destroyed him that had the power of death. He takes the sword, cuts off his head, and it says he slew it.
But that's not then. Later on, he takes his head to Jerusalem. It's displayed gruesome.
But he takes his armor into his own tent, and so there was a V1 at Calvary's Cross.
There's the power of his victory evident in your life and mine now in this world, despite the adversary that we've been talking about adversaries. But as Paul wrote in the end of Romans, the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. There's no.
Going to come a time when he's all this wicked, this wicked creation fallen, a heavenly creation, spiritual creation will be cast out of heaven.
Then God will deal with the same on earth, and He's going to bruise Satan under our feet shortly. As the God of peace and His counsel, His purpose will be fulfilled. We'll be part of it.
Say the same things that have just been said, but in slightly different words.
When the army of Israel looked at Goliath, they looked at themselves and compared themselves to Goliath, and they were afraid.
00:50:01
When David came into the camp, he did not compare himself to Goliath. He said, who is this man to defy the armies of the living God? He compared the battle, the conflict between the living God and Goliath. What do we compare?
All the conflict of today to ourselves, hope not. It's between the living God, the person, that of our chapter, the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and what he has done, the victories that he has won, the work that he will still do, between everything that is supposed to God and man. And so we can look at the person of the Lord Jesus this morning.
And say all the battles are in his hands.
Children of Israel, when David slew Goliath, he fell to the ground. I believe he was dead.
But the children of Israel, they were still afraid. If this guy gets up, man, is he going to be mad, you know? But when David cut off his head.
What? There was no doubt. So the Lord vanquished him in death. What's the proof of it? He comes out of death.
Arisen Christ now the other side, the ones that he rose from the dead in this life, Lazarus and the young young girl of 12 and the widow of named her son, they came back on this side of death.
But he rose up from the dead on the other side of death. No more question of death ever. And we should be like the children say, wow, what a victory.
To be continued, maybe in the glory, if not here on earth. Time's up #132.
Great praise 1 slaying by now.
Again.
In.
Mind.
Sorry.
I.
God.
And praise the church.
And.
Lord.
Of all.
Angry.