Kazen, Doug: God Manifest In The Flesh

First Epistle to Timothy, chapter three. we'll begin reading at verse fourteen. There's a little paragraph right at the end of this chapter that I hope the Spirit of God will direct our attention to much this weekend. These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly. But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. Now you will notice that in the last verse of First Timothy chapter th- uh, three we have the words God was, and after those words there are six things that God was. And I trust that we will be able this weekend to look at those six things concerning which the Spirit of God says God was, as we're together. Now will you turn over, please, to the book of the Revelation, chapter one. The book of the Revelation, chapter one, And we'll read at verse, begin reading at verse ten. John writing, he says, I was in the spirit on the Lord's day and heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last. And what thou seest, write in a book and send it onto the seven churches which are in Asia, onto Ephesus and onto Smyrna and onto Pergamos and onto Thyatira and onto Sardis and onto Philadelphia and onto Laodicea. And I turned to see the voice that spake with me, and being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks, and in the midst of the seven candlesticks, one like unto the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. And then we have six physical attributes of the person who was in the midst of the golden candlesticks brought to our attention. His head and his hairs were white like wool as white as snow, and his eyes were as a flame of fire, and his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace, and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars, and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and his confidence was as the sun shineth in his strength. One more passage we'll read before we make any comments is in First Peter, please, chapter one. The first epistle to, uh, Peter, chapter one, beginning to read at verse thirteen. Wherefore, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance, but as he which have called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation, or all manner of living, because it is written, be ye holy, for I am holy. Now, I believe that a lot of us who are gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ in assembly testimonies in various places are losing our sense of why we are gathered thus. We perhaps have drifted away from an awareness of the beauty of being gathered to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. A lot of our young people especially, and I don't know why it is we always pick on the young people, we say the young people, maybe a lot of us old ones even more so, are becoming mundane, lackadaisical, careless, maybe even indifferent about the privileges and the responsibilities that are associated with gathering in New Testament church testimony. As the apostle is writing to Timothy, who was evidently his son in the faith, and perhaps a younger man, he wrote to him hoping that he would soon be able to meet with Timothy. But the two men who were close friends in the faith were, at the time of Paul's writing, separated by some distance. And Paul was looking forward to the time when they would get together. But as he's writing in the third chapter, he says to Timothy, now, if I tarry long, I hope to see you soon, but if I tarry long, there are some things I want you to know. And he said, I want you to know how you're to behave yourself in the house of God. Now you might say, well, after all, couldn't that wait? Timothy was a very sincere young man. He was a Christian. He was born again. He was at this time one of those who had a great care for the churches wherever they could be found. In fact, it was said of him that he had more care for the people of God than anyone else. There was no one like-minded who would naturally care for the state of the saints. And yet Paul writes to him and he says, now, Timothy, I'm writing these things so that you'll know how to behave yourself in the house of God. Then he goes on to say that that is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. Now that word church, as you may know, means the ecclesia. It literally means the called out one. That thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the ecclesia, the called out ones of the living God. It's a principle of scripture that God has always, from the beginnings of his dealings with men, had a place here on earth where he places his name and where he presences himself. He did that with Israel. He brought into Israel's presence a tabernacle, a dwelling place. If you go back to the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy, you will find that God instituted that place where he would dwell. He placed there the mercy seat, and on either side of it and over it was a cherubim, cherubim with its wings spread wide, and God said to his people Israel, there will I meet with you. Every Israelite who was going to find the presence of God had to come to that place, the place that God had designated, and that's where his name dwelt. For he said in Deuteronomy, I have placed my name there. And all throughout Israel's history, as long as Israel was indwelt by the presence of God, God had a place. The tabernacle of God was plate- was pitched from time to time in various places in the wilderness, and then when they got into the land of Canaan, it was placed in Shiloh. Later on, God put it in other places in his land, and as long as the people of God were in fellowship with God, they went to that place where his name was, and there they found his presence. There is a most sobering series of chapters in the book of Ezekiel, by the way, and I can't remember exactly what chapters they are, but they are toward the middle of the book, where Ezekiel is prophesying Israel's ultimate departure, and he is speaking of the captivity when Israel would be taken out of Jerusalem and out of the land of Canaan, down into Babylon, away from the house of God. And there are, I think it is, in three successive chapters, steps that portray the departure of the presence of God from the temple in Jerusalem. You find in the first chapter the presence of God moves from between the cherubims out to the porch of the tabernacle. I think that was the first step. And then in the next chapter he takes another step outward. And then in the next chapter, he takes another step farther, and the presence of God is seen to rise and leave his people. And Israel, in its sin and departure, was left without the presence of God in their midst, and they became a people far from God and down into captivity they went, and never to be recovered to the land until nineteen forty eight as a nation. But God did a new thing when we come to the New Testament. He sent his son into the world, born of a woman, he became flesh and dwelt among us. By his work at Calvary, his death and his resurrection, he established through his ministry a church of his people. He left behind a testimony to his name down here. He said to Peter, upon this rock, Christ, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. By the way, brethren and sisters, that statement of our blessed Lord is a most encouraging one. You may think that New Testament church testimony is frail, weak, small, scattered, battered, divided, topsy-turvy tonight, and in many ways it is. But I hang happily to that statement of our blessed Lord, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Undoubtedly, the powers of the evil one are arrayed against the people of God because he is against our blessed Lord. He would like nothing better than to destroy the dwelling places of the person of Christ down here, but our blessed Lord said, the gates of hell, and that means the ruling hierarchy of darkness itself, which is Satan, the one who is the prince of the power of the air and who fills this sin-darkened world tonight, that one shall not prevail against the church. Now, what is that church that was left behind? That church is the people of God who have the privilege of being gathered to the name and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so Paul, as he's writing to Timothy, he says, that if I tarry long that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God. Meaning that that which was set forth in the Old Testament as God's dwelling place on earth is now the house of God where God dwells now. And lest we be in any doubts as to what that house is, he says, which is the ecclesia, the corporate testimony of the called out ones, the ecclesia of the living God. By the way, I have a lot of pet peeves, and I might as well tell you some of them. One of them is, it always annoys me a little bit when I hear a Christian say, I'm going to church. Now that suggests a misunderstanding of something that is very important. You are not at this moment in the New Testament sense. Now I'm not trying to split hairs and be picky, but in the New Testament sense, you are not at this moment sitting in a church. You are at this moment sitting in a building. And if you are in fellowship in a corporate testimony of God's people, you are church. As long as you're in fellowship with the people of God, you're a part of God's house on earth. And oh, I wish we could get that refreshed in our minds this weekend. For that, for that projects to our minds a sense of privilege and responsibility and pleasure that many of us have lost. You and I are the called out ones of God. We are church. What is that church? It is the house of God. It's where the Lord dwells. Then he says, it's the pillar, that which holds up, and the ground, that which is the foundation of the truth. Pilate said once to the Lord Jesus Christ, what is truth? And the Lord answered, I am the way, the truth, and the life. You know, there are certain things in the Bible that are brought intimately together. We should never separate them. You'll find, as I speak to you, I'm constantly digressing, and I don't know whether that's good or bad, but this is a little digression. There are things that the Bible puts together that we should never separate. One of those is the word, as we have it in John chapter one. W-O-R-D with a capital W, the Word was made flesh and dwells among us. The Word and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ are inseparable. The person of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the living Word, is intimately associated with the place where he dwells. And the place where he dwells is inseparably associated with his name. Thus, those four great things, the Word, the person, the place, and the name, are intimately associated throughout scripture. And you and I, as corporate testimony, are the na- the place in which him who is the living word dwells, and we bear his holy name. Then the apostle says to Timothy, great is the mystery of godliness. Now, a mystery in the New Testament is not a mystery in the sense of a mystery novel. When you pick up a mystery novel, you're not supposed to know the outcome until you read the last page, unless you're kind of weird, like my wife, who always reads the last page first, and then the thing is no mystery anymore. I don't understand that kind of psychology, but I've only been married to her twenty five years, so I guess it's too early to kind of try to understand her anyway. But it is not a mystery in the New Testaments, in in in that sense. A mystery in the New Testament sense is a truth which has been and is revealed in the New Testament, which was hidden from all previous dispensations. And so the writer Paul says to Timothy, great is the mystery of godliness. He said, I'm going to tell you now, Timothy, what godliness is in the New Testament sense, never has been revealed before. Then he says, God was. And he lists for us six things that relate to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Six things which, in a very real sense, were never true of him until he became a man. And those six things are related to the church in the world today. Now, if you have one of these outlines, and I'm not much for outlines, but maybe this will help you to try to keep track of where we are and where we're going this weekend. If you've got one of these, well, and if you haven't, there's more on the back table. You'll find across the top the statement, great is the mystery of godliness. And then under it, a line that says God in Christ is revealed to the church, in or amidst the church, and by the church. And answerable to those three prepositions, you'll find three columns down below. On the left, six senses in which Christ is revealed to the church today, and those six senses are in this last verse of First Timothy chapter three. In the middle column, you will find six physical attributes of the Christ, which suggest to us ways in which he is revealed amidst the church. And we read in Revelation chapter one where we find him in the midst of the church, or I should say of the churches. And there we noted six physical characteristics of him that are set forth in a way that are peculiar to his God in man, his humanity. And then on the right column, we have six senses that's, that are related to the first two, which suggest to us ways in which Christ ought to be revealed by or through us today. Now, the first of those is the one we'll look at for a little while tonight before we separate, and that is the great reality, the first one that Peter, that Paul sets before Timothy. God was manifest in the flesh. In the middle column, we see him in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, and we see his head related to that first characteristic. His head and his hairs white, like white as wool, pure in their whiteness. And then we have some suggestions as to the senses in which Christ ought to be revealed through us to this dying world that are related to those great facts. Now, first of all, Christ was manifested in the flesh. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. One of the greatest miracles that was ever accomplished by the Godhead is the fact that God's Son, the eternal Christ, became a man. Not mere man, but he became true man. He never ceased to be God, never. Not even when he expired on the cross of Calvary, he was ever God's eternal son. He never had a beginning as the Son of God, and he will never have an ending as the Son of God. But he who was God's eternal Son became a man, and that's a miracle. Now that becoming of manhood, that becoming of human flesh does not suggest in any sense that he was fallible. Let us clearly understand that our blessed Savior not only did not sin, he could not sin. In fact, there are four delightful statements relative to that blessed person, and if you want to note these down for future reference, if you don't know them, please do so. For I bring this up because there is much error in the world today about the fallibility or the infallibility of our blessed Savior. There are four statements in the New Testament which, brought together, give us very clearly the teaching of his character. In Hebrews four and fifteen we are told he was without sin. In First Peter two and twenty two, we are told he did no sin. In First John three three to five, we are told in him was no sin. And in Second Corinthians five and twenty one, we are told he knew no sin. He was without sin. He did no sin. In him was no sin. And he knew no sin, and yet the Word of God says God made him to be sin for us. I do not understand it, but I know it is true. For my sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin, not in part, but at the whole, was nailed to his cross, and I bear it no more. Bless the Lord. Bless the Lord, oh my soul. The sacrifice that died for us at Calvary was God's perfect lamb, God's beloved son who became a man. Every thought of his was perfect. Every step of his was perfect. Every word of his was perfect. It was impossible that it should be otherwise. I'll never forget one day standing in the midst of a dusty and dirty little street in the city of Nazareth in Israel, on a hot afternoon, near the place where our blessed Lord spent years in the s- in the home of his natural father, Joseph, where he was a carpenter. And as we stood there, having been in the area and in the place that supposedly was his childhood home, my wife said to me, one thing I do not understand is why it was that if God must give his son for us, why must that son live in a dirty, hot, uncomfortable, unpleasant little town like this? And yet, that one who was God's eternal son, out of love to you and me, came and humbled himself to depths that know no measure. He became a carpenter, working in the home of his father. When an order for carpentry, when an order for cabinets came in to that place, and so many were to be built, the father and the sons went to work to build those cabinets using the tools that they had available to them, and they didn't have band saws and skill saws and planers like you and I have got today, although I'd make a good mess of a bit of cabinetry even with that. But they didn't have those tools in that day. When that order came in and the father and the sons began to work, one of those sons was Jesus, and he worked with his father and his brothers in the building of those cabinets. He was the same one who in six days made this whole creation. Had he so desired, with the word of his mouth, he could have said made, and they would have been finished perfectly, but he didn't do that. I was so struck lately, reading in Mark chapter six— another digression, but reading in Mark chapter six where he is referred to as the carpenter. You'll find him in that same chapter when he's rejected by the people who lived in Niz- Nazareth and those who knew him well. It says he went out and he preached and he ministered. Where? In the villages. And if you've ever seen an a village in the Near East, you know something of what that means. No sanitary conditions, no comfortable homes, half a dozen little, little homes, little dwellings along a dusty street. A few people careworn and weary. Those were the ones who gathered around the Son of God. We read that he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Then it says, wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name that is above every name, that at the name of, and I'm sure you've noticed the name that's there, it's the human name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow. Oh, that blessed name, that blessed person who, though he was eternally God's son, he became a man, not only to die for us, but in order that he might be exalted above measure. He was manifested in the flesh. Why was he manifest in flesh? First of all, to show forth his perfection by his life, he proved man's sinfulness. That's why they crucified him. That's why the cry of the mob was, away with this man. We will not have this man to rule over us. A second reason for his manhood was to glorify the Father. He was the only one who ever walked this scene and by the strength of his own character, glorified the Father here on earth. He could say in John chapter seventeen, as he was about to go to the cross, I have glorified thee in the earth. I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. But he also came into this world of flesh in order that he might take sinners and make them like himself. And that's a marvelous miracle. Did you know, child of God, that you're supposed to be like Christ? In fact, in a very real sense, if you've been born again, you are like Christ. And your little while down here has the purpose of making you more and more like him. You and I are to reflect Christ in our lives and in our beings. We're not to be like the world. I have another little pet peeve. You sometimes hear of a person who is so heavenly minded they're no earthly good. My friend, there ain't been no such animal. There is none like that. There is no one who has been so heavenly minded that they're no earthly good. The Lord himself was the most heavenly minded that ever lived, and he brought more good into this earth than all the rest of mankind put together. And everyone who will follow him will be like him, will be conformed to the image of the one who became flesh and dwelt among us. You and I are to reflect his character. We're to reflect his demeanor, and we're to do his work while we're down here. That is why, as Paul begins to reveal the mystery of God was, the first thing he says, he was manifested in the flesh. Now, when you come to Revelation chapter one, there's a remarkable picture there. John is given a revelation. The first part of the revelation that he gets is a revelation of seven churches. They are plural. In the Old Testament, God had one dwelling place, Israel, in the midst of Israel. In the New Testament, God has a plurality of dwelling places, but they all are to share certain divine characteristics. In Israel, there was one candlestick. Any of you here been to Jerusalem lately, the last few years? If you went to the west side of Jerusalem where the Israeli parliament meets, you would find the great large Knesset building, where, which is the seat of government of Israel. And at the gate in front of those bil- that building, where you would go if you were going to be admitted into the chambers of the legislature of Israel, there stands a great big thing that is a replica of Israel's candlestick. It is a single standard, and on that single standard are seven arms or seven appendages. It is a seven-armed single candlestick. That's the way the candlestick was that was in the tabernacle in the wilderness. But when you come to Revelation chapter one, where John is given an image or a revelation of New Testament testimony, there is a plurality of candlesticks. And in as much as the number seven always suggests to us heavenly completeness, the seven candlesticks that we see here are suggestive to us of the whole church of God. But notice that they are seven separate and distinct candlesticks. Brethren, it is a principle of the New Testament that every individual New Testament church is an independent, autonomous, divinely instituted spiritual organism. May I say that again? It is a principle of the New Testament that every divinely New Testament church is a divinely instituted, separate, independent, autonomous church, governed from within itself, controlled by the Spirit of God, guided by the immutable precepts of the New Testament, answerable to the head in heaven and none other. That is why we believe it is God's order that every church is separate and independent and responsible to the Lord. You brethren who gather here are not responsible to the elders of Whitman Avenue in Seattle for what you do, or to the elders of any other assembly anywhere. But you are responsible, brethren, to guide, to feed, to lead this assembly according to the word of God, answerable eternally to the head in heaven and to him alone. This is why we have no national federation of assemblies. This is why we have no national headquarters, and we need none. Our head is in heaven, and we are answerable to him. Now notice that John saw in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, how many persons? Just one. In the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, one. What was he like? Like unto the Son of Man. We see the divine Christ who was made flesh and dwelt among us, presencing himself in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. When we come together as a church, it ought to be, and I trust it is, that the Lord Jesus Christ himself is present in our midst, with all of the attributes that we find in Revelation chapter one evident amongst his people. I wonder what kind of a stir there would be if there was a clatter at the door right now, and three or four Secret Service men walked in, and following them came the President of the United States. I suppose you would expect me to quit speaking and let him take the rostrum, although I'm not at all sure I would, because I don't think he would be able to speak about these things. But my, there would be a tremendous stir, because if I didn't quit talking, I'd lose your attention anyway. You'd all be taken up with a very eminent personage who is due to receive honor from his countrymen because of the office that he holds. But oh, how often it is, as we gather together as the people of God, that we come careless, indifferent, lazy, not recognizing that there is in our midst no less than the person of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Everything, brethren and sisters, that goes on in this assembly, behind the scenes or not, is known to him. Every thought, every word, every action is known to the one who is present in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. Now, as he is moving in the midst of the seven, and by the way, the seven churches are, in one sense, a chronological order of church history. There's more than one sense in which the seven churches are set forth. They were seven literal churches at that time. They represent for us seven aspects of God's blessing to his people. They set forth for us seven aspects of spiritual problems that crop up amongst the people of God, but they are also a chronology, and they represent the whole history of the Gentile age from beginning to end, and I think we're living right at the end of it today. The church is about to go home. Christ is coming, and he's coming very, very soon. In In those those seven seven churches, churches, those seven literal churches, throughout the continuum, all the way from Ephesus, Ephesus to Laodicea, the person of the Lord Jesus Christ is seen in the midst. And then the writer begins to set forth to us the attributes of that person who's in the midst. And the first physical thing he says about him, and I'd like you to notice that there are six physical things that seem to be associated with the six revelations of his manhood as the center of the church in First Timothy chapter three. The first of those six things is his head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow. The Spirit of God takes us, first of all, to the head. Who is the head of the church? Christ is. No one else is to be the captain of his people. He is Lord of all. The lordship of Christ is never to be challenged amongst the people of God. Personal opinions that run contrary to scriptural precepts have no place amongst God's people. He said, why would you call me Lord and not do the things that I say? He is absolutely Lord. He is the head of the church, and the church is his bride. And by the way, contrary to worldly thought and worldly tradition, tradition, the husband is the head of the house. Now, that doesn't mean that he carries a coiled bullwhip in his back pocket. It doesn't mean that he goes around the house barking orders to his, at his wife. A relationship, I don't know why I'm on this, but a relationship of man and wife is a relationship of love, and it's a relationship for life. It is a relationship in which the husband is in the loving character as husband and provider, the head of that house. And his demeanor in the Christian home, as well as his wife's demeanor there, is to be a reflection of the relationship of Christ and his people in the church. We get this very clearly in the book of Ephesians. Children, obey your parents in the Lord. It is God's mind that children are to obey their parents. Fathers, admonish your children lovingly. Show them love. Show them care and kindness, but have them in subjection. You know, one of the things I like about this little meeting in Spokane already is to look at the group of you and see how many youngsters are in this audience. Parents, may I say as a brother in Christ, you're to be commended for bringing your little ones to the meetings. God will bless you for that. Many of us, including my wife and I, have proved that God blesses that, and it is done to his glory. Bring your children to meeting. When I was a kid, I had to be half dead and the other half cold before I was allowed to stay home from any meeting. If I went to my dad and said, Dad, I, I think I'm flunking in chemistry, and there's an exam tomorrow, dad would say, well, I'll let you off from milking the cows tonight. You go and study, but you're going along to prayer meeting, and you can study afterward as late as you like. And God in his mercy helped me to get through chemistry and all the other things. Young people, obey your mother and dad in the Lord. They love you. They have a godly care for you. They are trying to protect you and to help you in the midst of an ungodly and wicked world. Parents, bring your children constantly to the house of God, where they'll learn the word of God, and God will bless you for it. And they'll grow up to be men and women of God. Remember what God said of Abraham? I know him that he will command or order his household, and I used to think it said after me. It doesn't. It says after him, doesn't it? God knew Abraham and commanded him for it, that he would order his household after him. Oh, to be a father like Abraham, so that God would say, I would that that man's children were like their father and like their mother. Well, in the midst of the churches, we find one who is the head. Now, what is there that's striking about that head? His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow. This, I believe, suggests to us the purity of our blessed Lord and the holiness of the place where he presences himself. Wool is traditionally a commodity of whiteness. Snow is also white, and it is that form of precipitation which does not collect dirt as it falls down through the atmosphere. You know, on those rare occasions when rain falls in Los Angeles, it's mud by the time it hits the sidewalk, almost. The air is so dirty, and to a lesser or greater degree, it's true all around the world. But as snow falls, that falls in purity because it is crystalline and solid already. It does not collect the dirt as it comes down. And so it is with one who came down from heaven and dwells amongst his people. He is there in holy, spotless purity. Brethren and sisters, the place of gathering is a holy place. It is a place where sin is not to be brought in. Be careful what you bring into the testimony of God's people. Remember that by your personal actions, you can defile the testimony of God in its entirety. You may think to yourself, oh, I can do this. Nobody knows. Achan thought that. Remember Achan at Ai? Israel was on the march. Jericho had fallen. They had crossed the Jordan. They were beginning to take the Promised Land. A mighty army of God's people were marching forth, and they come to a little place called Ai. It's a little peanut stand of a town, not much of an army, no tanks, no camels, nothing. And Joshua sends a small force to take it, and they're defeated before the people of Ai. And Joshua goes before God, and he says, why has this defeat fo- befallen us? And God told him, Joshua, they're sin in the camp. And what came out of that revelation of God was not that there was general sin throughout the nation of Israel. There was sin on the part of one man who coveted a Babylonish garment. He took for himself that which belonged to God. And because of it, the whole nation of Israel was stopped in its tracks. Israelites died for Achan's sin, and there was no progress until that sin was put right. You know, we live in a world of unqualified wickedness. There are sins in the world today that are commonplace, and you hear them discussed in the news that we would hardly breathe the name of when I was a youngster. I want to tell you that those sins are as wicked in the eyes of a holy God tonight as they ever were. The character of the world has changed. Sad to say, the character of America has changed. But the character of the one who is in the midst of the churches has never changed, and it will not. That head is white with purity. That one is as white as the blown snow, unblemished in all the reality of his person. And every time the church in Spokane gathers, there is in the midst of his people a holy Lord Jesus Christ. And as we read in First Timothy chapter one, he says to you and me, be ye holy, for I am holy. Hidden sins will be brought to light by him. Careless living is not tolerated by the Lord of the church. You and I, as we gather to manifest this one in our own flesh, who himself was God manifest in flesh, we are to reflect the holy character of our blessed Lord. And if we do not, our testimony will suffer. We will not make progress. I know nothing of the testimony here. I like to preach in places where I don't know the people. Of course, it's better if they don't know me too. They always like me better that way. John said I often speak in Whitman, and that's true, but you know, one of the problems of speaking in your own assembly is you know everybody, and you know all the problems, and they know if I'm one of the problems, so that makes it more difficult. Here, I don't know if you've got any problems. I hope you haven't. And if you've got any, please don't tell me. We got enough of our own. But I can say anything that I feel led to say with impunity, because you'll know it's not personal. Brethren, if as you look at your testimony that meets here, you see, I say if you see a lack of progress, if you see that souls are not being saved, if there is a sense of defeat in your testimony and in your thinking relative to the testimony, may I suggest to you that one of the first things to do is to be exercised before the Holy One who is in the midst of the candlesticks as to whether there is something in the testimony that is dishonoring to that holy name. For he says, be ye holy, for I am holy. That One is white and whiteness itself. He was manifest in the flesh. It is our responsibility and privilege to manifest him to a dying world. We must have the character of whiteness that was seen in him, or we shall be defeated. Now, let me make one thing clear as I close. I am not preaching sinless perfection. The people of God are not sinless. But when sin comes into our lives, much less into the assembly, it must be judged. It must be confessed before him. It must be put away, or there will be no progress. May God bless his word to us and help us as we go on looking at these six attributes of himself, to keep in mind that he who was God manifest in flesh is still in our midst in all his spotless purity, and he calls out to his own, be ye holy, for I, your Lord, am holy. Shall we pray? Our Father, in the precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ, thy beloved Son, we bow before thee this evening. We thank thee for that one who is in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. We thank thee, Father, that those candlesticks are golden, divine in their character, setting forth the person of thy beloved Son. And O God, we pray thee to awaken us anew this weekend to the privileges and responsibilities that we have as a New Testament church. Help us, Father, with sobriety and with reverence to thee, to get a fresh look at this glorious person, and to recognize anew what our privileges and our responsibilities are as thy people gathering in church capacity. We pray thee to bless us much this weekend. Help us to get to know one another in all the pleasure of godly fellowship. Help us to be blessed out of thy word. Encourage and strengthen the testimony in this place, we pray thee. And if these prayers of ours are answered, the glory shall all be thine. For we ask in the precious name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.