Address—P.L. Johnson
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General Meetings. Toledo, November 1980. Open meeting.
The hymn that was given out and brought before me.
The little word to Philadelphia in Revelation chapter 3.
Revelation chapter 3.
Verse 7.
And to the Angel of the church in Philadelphia, right these things, that he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shut it, and shut it, and no man open it.
I know thy works. Behold, I have set before thee an open door.
Passed a little strength, and has kept my word, and has not denied my name. Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie. Behold, I will make them to come worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee because thou hast kept the word of my patience. I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation which shall come.
All the world to try them that dwell upon the earth. Behold, I come quickly, hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.
Now, it wasn't my exercises to speak in detail on the verses that we have read.
But verse 11 was especially what I had before me.
Behold, I come quickly.
Which is, we've been reminded, even in these meetings.
That we are.
Are in expectation of the soon return of our Savior, the Lord Jesus. Behold, I come quickly. And I'd like to say in passing that the real ground for our expectation of the Lord's soon return is His own word. Behold, I come quickly. That's really the ground of our expectation.
Of his soon return. Behold, I come quickly.
I'm not going to say anything in regard to events that one might take an account of that are going on in the world, but I do feel that the word, the words of the Lord Himself, should be that which really gives us the expectancy of His soon coming. Behold, I come quickly.
Now in view of that, he says, Hold that fast which thou hast.
Well, our brother yesterday gave a very good illustration, which was, as he said, a true experience of one who held fast, held tenaciously, that which had been committed to him, even though he lost his life in the process. But he held fast that which he had, and I have no doubt about what the reason for it.
Was that he valued that.
He valued that.
And what I had before me is to speak a little in regard to that which has been brought to us.
In the grace and goodness of God, in his beloved Son, through his beloved Son, the Lord Jesus, and that into which we have been brought to.
That we might value.
The precious truth value that which God has.
Revealed of his heart and of his mind, and of his will.
And I believe that if we truly value these things, and as we have indicated here in the church at Philadelphia, these precious things once given by God by divine inspiration through chosen instruments of old.
Those things have been recovered and restored to the people of God.
I believe we can say that those of us who are living at this particular time in the history of man on the earth are the most privileged of all people who have ever lived.
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We are those who have the fully revealed mind of God. We have all of the accumulated, you might say.
Understanding and revelation of the ways of God with His people. Think of all that we have available to us in this precious book that God has given. And not only that, but we're living in a day when these truths have been unfolded.
By the Spirit of God, through vessels that he has taken up and used.
We're living in days of great light and great privilege, but the question is, do we really value that which God has given?
This is what always impresses me when I read the Epistle to the Hebrews.
That the Spirit of God there would want to impress upon them the value of that into which they had been brought, and that which God had brought unto them, So that they would not turn away, so that they would not give it up, so that they would not want to have it corrupted and altered in any way.
Turn back to the Epistle to the Hebrews chapter.
11.
I made a statement as to our living and privileged times.
And I want to read a verse that would bear that out, I feel.
Verse 39 of Chapter 11.
After God had given these wonderful witnesses.
To the path of faith.
And very worthy they were. We read that these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better thing for us.
That they without us should not be made perfect, Well, no doubt that being made perfect here would refer to.
They're being brought into the glorified state.
The glorified bodies, they are those spirits of justice men. All of these Old Testament worthies we know are with the Lord. They are the spirits of just men. They're not yet made perfect because they do not have their glorified bodies. They will receive those bodies of glory when we receive hours at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But meanwhile it says God having provided some better thing for us.
Oh that to think that these men of faith.
Faithful men and women as well brought before us in this chapter, and when we read this chapter, we are made to feel how far short we fall from these who have walked the pathway of faith here.
And we feel that they have been. They have honored the Lord, perhaps.
More than we have. And yet God has provided some better thing.
For us, some better thing, and that's what we find all the way through this epistle to the Hebrews. These better things, the good things to come. Well, it isn't because of our worthiness. We know that there are better things because God is now, has now made known the fullness of his heart and his mind and his will, as we've had before us in our readings.
That that baptism, that he was to be baptized with the Lord Jesus says now having been accomplished, the floodgates are open and God has brought to us wonderful blessing. He has unfolded things to us that was never known before, and he's brought us into a position that these who were faithful in Old Testament times never enjoyed a place of nearness.
A place in association with his beloved son.
A place before him as his children and as sons too, and with His Spirit indwelling us. And as I've already said, the whole revealed mind of God made known to us in this precious book. Well.
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Perhaps the danger with us is somewhat like the Hebrews, that we do not value it. This is what was given by God in the beginning. Turned back to the book of Acts chapter 20.
A verse that I often refer to.
But it's really a striking statement.
Paul in verse 26 of Acts 20 says.
Wherefore I take you to a record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men, For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the council of God.
All the counsel of God.
I wonder if we really appreciate the fact that we are in such wonderful light of having all the council of God. God has held nothing back.
When Solomon dedicated the temple, he had to speak of God as dwelling in the thick darkness.
But now God has come out in the light, so to speak. He has come out in light, and he has made known.
All his counsels.
We read in our reading.
Of the of that book.
Lo, I come in the volume of the book. It is written of Maine, and it was pointed out that that book contains the purposes and counsels of God. And now in Christianity God is unfolding those purposes and councils, those things that come out from His heart, from his.
Own innermost being, as it were.
I have often thought that if we were allowed to have a an intimate conversation with the President of the United States so that we would be assured that he would speak what was really on his mind and in his heart and tell us what his thoughts were and just spoke to us.
In a very, very intimate way, revealing himself.
In a way that he wouldn't dare to do, you might say publicly. Why we might say that would be very interesting, how we would like to be able to have a conversation like that.
Well, I wonder if we've ever thought that we have, in this precious revelation that is so easily accessible to us, what comes forth from the very, very heart and mind of God.
And we know, of course, that in the Old Testament it's chiefly a record of God's dealings, God's ways with his people and his dealings with men generally. And when we come to Christianity, the subject of the New Testament, it's more the unfolding of those purposes and counsels of God, the great light.
That has now been brought in well in this very book of Acts I'd like to refer.
Back in chapter nine, first of all.
In the experience of Saul of Tarsus.
As he later of course becomes the Apostle Paul as the one.
Who was used of the Lord to make these things known?
The experience he had on that road to Damascus would perhaps indicate something of the light that God has now brought out to us from himself, the light of Christianity, which is.
Greater than anything that God has ever brought out before.
Now I just used a word that reminds me of something we have the subject of the Gospel of John.
You remember when Nathaniel is brought to the Lord Jesus?
And he confesses him to be the Christ, the Son of God. No doubt that was an Orthodox Jewish confession, as we have in the second Psalm.
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As the King, as the Christ, the Anointed One set upon his holy hill of Zion, and he's also spoken of as his Son. But the Lord Jesus says to him that thou shalt see greater things than this.
Greater things, and I believe we have in the Gospel of John those greater things brought out. We find that when he speaks to Nicodemus in chapter three, he speaks first of the earthly things and then he says, now I'm going to speak to you about heavenly things. And he brings out the truth of eternal life, the truth of eternal life, the heavenly things.
Earthly things were known in Judaism, but now the heavenly things are brought out.
And even in that second chapter, it was said there that the best wine was kept until the last. Well, I know that perhaps that might be applied to the to the coming day of the Millennium, but I think in principle it applies even today that the best has been kept until the last. And we find all the way through in John's Gospel the greater things brought in now in connection with the Son of God.
Who has come down from heaven? From God?
The one who is in the bosom of the Father, and he declares.
The father, Well, those are some of the greater things. Well, now in the experience of Saul of Tarsus.
When he is stricken down on that road to Damascus, as we read here in Chapter 9.
Verse Three. And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven.
A light from heaven.
This is what characterizes.
Christianity. This is what characterizes that better thing that God has.
Reserved for us, this is what characterizes those greater things.
This is what has been brought to us.
And the person of the Lord Jesus.
And what we've been brought into the heavenly light, that which has come down from heaven, and we are now those who are associated with heaven.
Heavenly things.
Well, I mentioned this because I feel.
In myself and I find with the Lord's people generally that there is a tendency to drop down to an earthly level now, not necessarily a worldly in the sense of going out into all of the the worldly amusements and pursuits that the world goes after, but just earthly dropping down into.
An earthly state of things and an earthly mindedness.
But we find that the truth that God has brought us into, the truth that God has restored, is of a heavenly character. It is that which opens up heaven to us. It is that which not only assures us of being in heaven, but puts us in touch and contact with heavenly things even now, as the apostle says, while we look not on the things that are seen.
But on the things that are not seen, well, those things that are not seen are the heavenly things.
We know that before the work of the Lord Jesus, his sufferings on the cross.
His resurrection and ascension to heaven and the descent of the Holy Spirit. Why it was necessarily occupation with things that are seen and earthly things. But now God has introduced the heavenly.
And this is really a part of the testimony that God has committed to us.
That which thou hast.
Which has been committed of the whole purpose and counsel of God. What has been unfolded and now is available to us here. He says it's a light from heaven, the heavenly things and we know of course that the not only do we find a tendency to drop down to an earthly state of things, but we know that this world.
Resists the heavenly things.
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I have no doubt but what?
That which aroused the enmity of this world was the fact that the Lord Jesus, as He said that He was from above, they were from beneath, they were of this world, but He was not of the world. And this aroused their animosity. As I said in the readings this morning, it was not the useful deeds that the Lord Jesus did. It wasn't that He was that He went around doing.
Healing those that were oppressed of the devil, that aroused the animosity. It was because he was that heavenly one, the one who came down from heaven, and he was not in, he was not in consort with this world in any way, but he was heavenly. Well, that's the light that has been brought to us, as he says here, a light from heaven.
Now turn over to the 22nd chapter.
As he recounts this experience, the.
In chapter 222.
Verse 6.
And it came to pass that as I made my journey, and was come nigh unto Damascus about noon, suddenly they're shone from heaven a great light round about me. Now you notice here a little change in the wording. In the 9th chapter it was said it was a light from heaven that would emphasize the heavenly.
Features.
Found in the truth of Christianity.
Now we read here that it is. He refers to it as a great light. A great light. Well, this is in keeping with what I've said in regard to the Epistle to the Hebrews, as well as the Gospel of John bringing before us that light, that it is greater and better than anything that God has ever given before.
A great light round about me.
Well, I know that.
Actually, literally that he's referring to that light that shone down from heaven, but I believe we can see in this a little away in anticipation.
Of the ministry of the apostle Paul as the one who was used of God to bring out as he says in Acts 20.
All the counsel of God.
Do we really look upon it as a great light?
You know, I'm satisfied that.
Whatever thing is that we value, it may not be something of great value to others, but if we value it, we're going to hold on to it.
And if it's something that is important to us, we're going to continue in it.
I believe we all recognize that, and I would want to impress upon each and everyone of us the greatness.
Of what God has brought us into in His precious truth, and what He's brought to us.
Through his beloved Son, all that we have that through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, as members of the body of Christ, as those who form the House of God, as those who are in the family of God, as those who have been set apart to God, sanctified and set apart to God.
As those who are not a part of this world delivered from this present evil world.
As those who are pilgrims and strangers passing through or one could go through.
The whole length and breadth and height and depth of that into which we've been brought and what has been brought to us. Do we look at it as something that is great? Do we feel how great it really is? And what a privilege it is to have such light from God? A great light. And God would impress us, impress our hearts with the greatness of it. Now it may be.
That those who.
Have not been brought into the light. Those who are still in the darkness may not think much of it.
And may not consider to be very great. And I just wonder as I'm saying these words here this afternoon, if there would be any in our midst.
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Does not feel the greatness of what God has brought out now in Christianity, the greatness of the light from God concerning His beloved Son, in the work that He's accomplished and the blessings that result. Does it mean nothing to you? Or it would be sad that there would be any in our midst who has no appreciation of His life?
Well, of course, one would doubt if such would be really the Lord's.
No doubt, if one is a true believer on the Lord Jesus Christ, he will have in some measure at least, an appreciation of that light which is not only heavenly, but great.
But my exercise is that that appreciation might be increased, that enthusiasm for it, that desire to retain it. And now turn to the 26th chapter of this same Acts of the Apostles.
Again, the apostle is recounting his conversion.
And he says in verse 13.
At midday, O King, I saw in the way a light from heaven.
Above the brightness of the sun.
Not only a heavenly light, a great light, but here he says it's above the brightness of the sun. The brightness of the sun. Well, what would that perhaps suggest to us?
I believe it would suggest that it is light that is beyond the creature, so to speak, beyond created things. The sun is the greatest light in the this created immediate universe of ours. It's the great light that God has put into the heavens. But it's a created thing now, this light that has come down to us, this light that we have received.
Is above the brightness of the sun.
It is above and beyond the creature.
It did not emanate from the mind of man, but it came forth from the mind and the heart of God Himself.
We read in First Corinthians 2. I have not seen nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for them that love him, but God has revealed him unto us by His Spirit.
See, it's beyond the eye of man to see, and his ear to hear, and his mind to conceive, but God has revealed him unto us by His Spirit, which would suggest, of course, that if one has not the Spirit of God, he does not have the capacity to enter into this light.
And consequently, of course, he would have no appreciation and value for this light. But those of us who have received the Spirit of God, having believed the gospel of our salvation, our hearts having been purified by faith, God has given us his Holy Spirit. And so his by the Spirit, we're able to enter in to these things that are beyond.
The mind of man.
Because it comes forth from the mind and the heart of God above the brightness.
Of the sun, how great are these things, how wonderful this light. Well, now I'd like to say a little word in regard to.
The privileged day in which we live. If you'll turn back to Revelation again. Chapter 3.
And I want to refer to a word that he said to Sardis.
In this chapter.
Verse 2.
Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain.
Ready to die, for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Now we've had this word perfect before us in our readings.
And I don't know that I would want to undertake to give a definition. You really have to take it in its context each time it's used.
To understand what it is referring to.
Here the thought is, I have not found thy works complete.
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Something was missing.
I have not found thy works complete. Now what is this referring to?
Those of us who are familiar with these letters to the seven churches in Asia.
Know that we have here the history written.
By God, the moral history of the Church in its responsibility as a light bearer in this world.
The Apostle Paul was used of God to establish the church.
Now not established on the day of Pentecost, but to establish it in its practice, in its doctrine, its teaching, and in its function in a practical way. It was through his ministry that it was established, and it was through him that it was endowed with the great light that God had for his people.
And then he leaves. As he says in the 20th chapter of Acts, he was about to depart.
And he was leaving them.
And they were left with this great light, They were left with the whole council of God, this heavenly light, this great light, this light above the brightness of the sun.
They were endowed with that.
Now they were responsible to maintain it.
Walk in the light of it.
To value it.
To know the practical power of it.
And we know that after the apostles left the scene, that soon, it had to be said, thou had fallen to the church. It fell, it left its first love, it dropped down from that elevated place in which it had been placed through the goodness of God in the ministry of the apostles.
And we know in these 7 letters to the seven churches, as I say, we have the moral history of the church.
And we see the downward course from Ephesus.
Right down to Thyatira and when we come to Thyatira.
Its darkness and not light. That heavenly light as it were, had been extinguished. That great light, that light above the brightness of the sun. Now that is not to say that it did not exist in the word. It did. It is never perished, but in a practical way it was lost to the people of God. It becomes submerged.
It had become, as it were, a light hid under a bushel or under a bed.
Was not shining, and God worked in his goodness to recover.
And to restore in a practical way, and for the enjoyment and blessing of the people of God, that precious truth, that heavenly light, that great light, that light above the brightness of the sun. And as He began to affect this recovery, we find that Sardis is the result of the first effort.
And the first stage, we might say.
In the recovery of that light that had been lost, but there was not a full recovery. It was only partial. And I have no doubt that what it has referenced to what God recovered at what we call the Reformation, there was a certain amount of recovery of the Christian truth that with which the church had been endowed. But it was not a full recovery. And that's what he's referring to here when he says I have not found.
Works perfect or complete. It wasn't a complete recovery.
Philadelphia represents, I believe, that full and complete.
Recovery so that the truth has been brought out again the light.
Has been restored and recovered. Now we live in a day.
As I've said, the most privileged dispensation of all of the dispensations of God.
We live in a day when the.
Council of God has been revealed and also in a day when that has been recovered.
And restored. The light has been recovered and restored. Perhaps that's what's referred to in verse 7.
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When the Lord says there that he has the key of David.
And he speaks about opening.
And again in verse eight I have set before thee and opened. It should read OPENED.
And open the door, indicating that the door had been shut. Now it is open.
It's an open door. The door is now open. The light has been restored and recovered.
Do we value it?
Do we steam it?
With the proper estimation or is it something that we.
Take for granted. Is it something that we have become so familiar with in a way?
I'm speaking now as to knowledge that we do not really value it in our hearts.
Well, we know that just as the light was lost in the beginning, that was left thy first love, that those.
Whom the truth has been restored and recovered can also let it slip away.
If there's not the real valuing of it, recognizing the better things, recognizing the greater things, and I feel that there is always the danger of flipping down to the level of the religious world around about.
Because the religious world round about us has dropped down to that level of the mixture of Judaism and Christianity.
As we had before us that ordinances of divine service in a worldly sanctuary, seeking to combine those elements.
Dropping down to a level in which the human mind can operate and function, in which the flesh can be comfortable and at ease and take part. Dropping down to the level whereby the man in the flesh can be accommodated.
And recognize, but you see the light, that heavenly light, that great light that had been brought out, that light above the brightness of the sun is above all of that.
It's above all of that. It's in connection with the 2nd man, the Lord out of heaven.
And we read as is the heavenly. Such are they also that are heavenly?
We have a connection now with the 2nd man and the heavenly man, the one who had come.
Out of heaven, the Lord out of heaven no longer associated with the one who is of the earth, earthy, the 1St man. Well, this is what was upon my heart, that we might heed the admonition. Behold, I come quickly.
Hold that fast which thou hast what God has revealed.
That better thing, the greater things.
They were in the scriptures all the time ever since they have been revealed of God.
They have been available to the people of God, but in a practical way it was lost and now it's been restored and recovered. There's been a full recovery. The Lord, as it were, has used that key of David, which perhaps have has reference to what do we have in the book of Isaiah in regard to Hill Kyle replacing Shebna, who was the treasurer of the House of God.
And if he said of Hilkiah that he would be?
But placed upon him the key of the House of David. And so it was in connection with being the treasurer of the House of God. Those wonderful treasures that God has for his people, they are opened up now, the Lord Jesus using the key of David, as it were, to open them up.
And minister them to his people. Well, may we value these things, the better things.
The good things to come, they have come. Now there are hours to enjoy.
Here, while we're here in this scene, as we pass through this world, not only we, we don't have to wait until we get to the glory. We can enter into them now and value them and walk in the light of this precious truth that God has made known to us and recovered to us that which thou hast. Hold fast.